Parish Council kills personnel policy manual

Staff report
The St. Mary Parish Council on Sept. 23 did away with a nearly 3-year-old personnel policy manual after a councilman’s warning about a “plethora of charges that could bankrupt the parish.”
The warning came from Councilman the Rev. Craig Mathews of Jeanerette, who made a motion to send the policy manual back to committee, revert to the 1995 manual in the meantime and investigate personnel complaints going back three years.
The council didn’t require much convincing. Mathews’ motion passed on a 7-1 vote, with three members absent.
The manual adopted in April 2024 led to employee complaints about nepotism, discrimination, favoritism and wrongful termination, Mathews said.
He didn’t cite specific cases, pointing to privacy rules.
Many potential problems were identified in the run-up to adoption of the 2024 manual, Mathews said. But the manual passed with a promise from the administration to continue working on potential problems with the new document, said Mathews, who also said that review never happened.
The parish government has a personnel board to which employees may appeal adverse decisions.
Councilwoman Dr. Kristi Prejeant Rink of Centerville said one complaint is that access to a review of administration personnel actions is too limited and available only in termination complaints.
Council J Ina of Franklin said employees feel that “they should be allowed to go to an independent third party that we’ve appointed to plead their case.”
The parish home rule charter gives the chief administrative officer, Paul Governale, broad authority over personnel decisions. Governale defended the administration’s handling of personnel matters.
“We do not take personnel decisions lightly,” Governale said. “We’re dealing with people’s lives.”
The personnel policy manual committee went through each of 56 individual points of concern, Governale said. The administration even used both the 1995 and 2024 manuals for a time because it was beneficial for employees.
“We wanted to keep everything employee-positive, which I feel like we did,” Governale said.
And no employee has declared a desire to take a case to the personnel board, he said.
But Ina said the problem is the structure. “I think the goal is to have a third party decide whether [a complaint] is warranted or not.”
Parish President Sam Jones noted that the charter does not give the president authority in personnel matters.
But “everybody who wants a review can get it,” Jones said.
Voting yes on the motion to reject the 2024 personnel policy manual were Dean Adams of Morgan City, Mark Duhon of Amelia, Rink, Gwendolyn Hidalgo of Bayou Vista, Les Rulf of Patterson, Ina and Mathews. David Hill of Bayou Vista voted no.