By Kyle Roberts

The Lincoln Parish School Board received highly positive remarks in its monthly meeting Tuesday night after its annual independent audit of the fiscal year 2021-22 with the highest result of “unmodified opinion” given.

“We are very proud of the results,” Lincoln Parish School Board Superintendent Ricky Durrett said. “It shows that our financial people work very hard and do a great job accounting for all of the money that we have gotten, especially with all the stimulus money and federal money that’s flowed through. That, I think, is a big credit to them and the great job that they do down there and taking care of taxpayer money and making sure it’s spent like it’s supposed to be.”

Amy Tynes of the Monroe CPA firm of Allen, Green & Williamson, gave the report after the approval of minutes from the Feb. 7 session, where she detailed various financial data and concluded by thanking the school board for its cooperation.

“With us working with you all, I cannot express how awesome it was working with your team,” Tynes said about the members that contributed to the report. “I greatly appreciate your staff, too, in the audit process that we were able to get this accomplished and accomplished timely.”

During the New Business section, the school board adopted a resolution to designate the week of April 24-28, 2023, as Support Personnel Week as a way to honor school bus operators, food service employees, custodians, secretaries, clerical personnel, teacher aides, bus aides, makers, technicians, paraprofessionals and others that are vital to the efficient operation of the Lincoln Parish school system.

Ricky Edminston read a majority of the resolution to the board before its passing.

Prior to adjourning, school board member David Ferguson brought up carried over concerns from the previous meeting in regards to the proposal to combine Ruston’s elementary schools, requesting further details on the criteria and evidence that the proposed plan would work.