Richland Parish schools in northeast Louisiana faced a legal showdown when The Center Square requested detailed records of five‑figure teacher bonuses paid this year. The school board initially refused, offering only printed copies and demanding unspecified hourly fees for retrieval.
Legal intervention forces compliance
Virginia Hamrick, staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, sent a demand letter to Superintendent Sheldon Jones in September. Within four days the board agreed to provide the records in spreadsheet format, complying with Louisiana’s public‑records law that requires electronic delivery when the data exist electronically.
The board’s fee schedule, which listed $30 per hour for “retrieval, review, and supervision” and $25 per hour for email searches, is not permitted under state law. After the attorney’s intervention, the district released the requested data for a modest fee of $11.75.
Bonus payouts funded by data‑center tax revenue
The disclosed spreadsheet shows the district has paid $13.76 million in bonuses this year. One hundred eighty‑three employees received $50,935 or more, including teachers, principals, counselors, administrators, and Superintendent Jones, whose base salary exceeds $191,000. An additional 124 support staffers earned $17,472 bonuses.
These payments are not direct contributions from Meta Platforms. Instead, they are distributions of local sales‑tax revenue generated by the construction of a new 4‑million‑square‑foot, $10 billion Meta AI data center named Hyperion. By ordinance, the school board collects a 1 percent sales tax to fund teacher bonuses.
Transparency concerns and broader context
David Cuillier, director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, noted that resistance to releasing the data reflects a broader pattern of limited transparency in Louisiana. The state ranked near the bottom in a 2025 MuckRock study of sunshine‑law compliance.
Cuillier also highlighted community concerns about data centers, including higher electricity costs, water usage for cooling, and perceived unfair tax breaks with limited permanent jobs.
School board President Chris Pruitt, Vice President Emily Ogden, and Personnel Director Rebecca Freeland, who handled the records request, did not respond to comment requests.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
