By Emily Carmichael, Uptown Messenger
It was a quick meeting Monday night for New Orleans College Prep’s Board of Trustees with four of the members slated to speak not present. Nevertheless, the board approved the prospective sale of their holding in 1424 S. Derbigny St. and learned the charter network’s financial situation has improved.
The charter operator obtained a share in 1424 S. Derbigny St. when it foresaw a sustained role in Sylvanie Williams College Prep, seeing the neighboring property as a potential site of development. New Orleans College Prep — which oversees Walter L. Cohen College Prep, Lawrence D. Crocker College Prep, and John W. Hoffman Early Learning Center — previously operated Sylvanie Williams, but lost the charter after the elementary school under-performed for years.
Habitat for Humanity is now interested in the property. Jonathan Tebeleff, the New Orleans College Prep chief financial officer, could not provide an exact sale price, but guessed the undeveloped property would sell for around $40,000. The board granted Tebeleff power to negotiate the sale.
Tebeleff also presented New Orleans College Prep’s financial situation, which he described as “probably the best financial position we’ve seen in a while.” He in part credited this to New Orleans College Prep CEO Joel Castro’s efforts.
“Overall, we should be at least on on budget,” Tebeleff said. “There’s a chance that if the city decides to pay off the roll forward all in this year, we could see a pretty good surplus from that. The full roll forward would probably be about $200,000 to $300,000 dollars of extra revenue.”
The “roll forward” refers to the Orleans Parish School Board’s decision to raise taxes based on new property value assessments instead of “rolling back” to a lower tax rate based on previous property values. In a controversial decision last year, the Orleans Parish Assessor’s office increased many home values, particularly in lower-income areas, causing property taxes to spike.
With the decision to roll forward on millage rates with this new assessment, the OPSB will generate $24.3 million for New Orleans schools.
The meeting also recognized Crocker’s middle school football team, which came back from a winless season last year to go undefeated this year.
