A Lafayette Parish School System insurance consulting contract is under scrutiny after School Board President Hannah Mason suggested during a contentious board meeting last month that it was awarded through insider connections involving a fellow board member, The Current reports.
The newspapers is reporting that the contract, awarded last year to health insurance consultant Kelly Cox and later reduced from $102,000 to $66,000 annually, did not come before the school board for approval and was executed solely by Superintendent Francis Touchet’s signature. Mason has alleged Cox has close ties to Board Member Jeremy Hidalgo, a claim Hidalgo disputes.
Questions about the Cox contract surfaced during a broader debate over an unrelated insurance matter — whether the district should seek a new vendor for its voluntary benefits program, which provides services such as dental, vision and life insurance.
Mason and Hidalgo sparred publicly at the board’s June 11 meeting, after Hidalgo proposed exploring new options for those voluntary benefits.
“We are in the middle of an existing [annual] contract that can be renewed through 2027,” Mason said then, addressing Hidalgo’s proposal. “We were told there were no performance issues, no service concerns and no operational challenges.”
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