LUTCHERÂ â The pending closure of the Shell Oil refinery in Convent, an industrial mainstay and top employer in St. James Parish, could cost the local public school district $13.9 million over the next year and a half and change the way schools operate over an even longer term.
While the scenario presented to school board members Tuesday night represented a worst-case scenario, it s possible that some district employees could lose their jobs, and student-teacher ratios could take a hit.
If the projections do hold true through the end of fiscal year 2021-22, school finance officials said in a report that the system would be unable to maintain current service levels in the next full fiscal year beginning July 1 and that cutting personnel costs would be virtually impossible to avoid.Â
Jim Mitchell, a top St. James Parish public school official, says Shell Oil Co. s decision this week to close its Convent refinery is akin to an uppercut to the head from onetime heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson. We re still in the process of getting our vision back, said Mitchell, the school system s chief financial officer.
The refinery is St. James largest taxpayer, its largest employer and a bedrock of the Mississippi River parish s industrial base that has employed generations of its residents.
Sheriff Willy Martin said the complex generates a total of $24 million per year in property, inventory and sales taxes for local governments: about $5 million in sales tax and $19 million in property and inventory taxes.