Parish Council makes progress on budget, salary and organization studies

St. Mary Parish Council members, meeting Wednesday as a budget committee, found more than half the money needed to plug a hole in the 2023-24 budget. They would hit that goal without layoffs, higher taxes, pay cuts, or drastic reductions in parish allocations to fire departments and nongovernmental organizations.
Now it’s up to the council to accept what amounts to its own recommendations in the form of an amended budget. Then comes the work of finding another roughly $900,000 to cover what is otherwise expected to be a $2.5 million shortfall.
Also Wednesday, the council learned it may be able to get controversial studies of parish salaries and organizational structure for less money than previously thought.
The potential shortfall has been estimated at up to $2.7 million, although the council seems to have settled on $2.5 million as the target.
Parish President Sam Jones had campaigned on what he said was the parish’s rocky financial condition. “It was no surprise that there would be a deficit,” Jones said Wednesday. “But I am surprised at how big.”
One contributing factor is a $1.5 million debt service payment coming up this year, fattened by the $20 million bond issue that improved roads in the parish and municipalities in a revenue-sharing arrangement.
Chief Administrative Officer Jean Paul Bourg had proposed budget amendments that would improve the budget picture by more than $1.6 million.
About $416,000 of that figure is in the form of revenue. The bulk of that, $346,000, comes from the council’s decision to pass all of the $22.80 per household per month trash pickup fee to residents. Until this year, the residents paid $19 per month, and the parish covered the rest.
The remaining roughly $70,000 comes from increased boat landing and boat landing sticker fees and increased rent for the Sales Tax Office.
Among cuts in spending:
—The parish will put off $351,000 in spending for new equipment, most of it for cutting grass.
—$209,000 in building expenses related to Fairview Treatment Center will be deferred.
—Three positions will be left vacant or folded into other positions for a savings of $94,000.
—Overtime will be reduced by $150,000. Until recently, sick days and holidays counted toward the 40 hours beyond which employees make time-and-a-half. Now, Bourg said, only hours actually spent on the job will count.
—A new house count reduced the number of trash pickups for which the parish is charged by 385 per month, a savings of $100,000.
Other items included savings for contract grass-cutting, copy machines, data processing and dirt-hauling.
The council resisted temptation in two other areas.
Members left intact $4,000 for employee safety awards.
And they decided not to commit completely to a 25% across-the-board cut in allocations to outside agencies, a potential savings of $191,000.
Those agencies include fire protection districts, which would lose a total of about $81,000 in parish funds with a 25% cut.
Other affected agencies include the Community Action Agency, Arc/Center of Hope, the Council on Aging, recreation boards, the Morgan City Library, St. Mary Outreach, Morgan City Juvenile Court, and fairs and festivals.
On a motion by Dr. Kristi Prejeant Rink of Centerville, the 25% cut will apply only to payments due from the parish in the period before the council takes further action.
Studies
Councilman J Ina of Franklin has proposed a pair of studies: one of parish salaries and one of the parish’s organizational structure. He gave the council a proposal from Alabama-based LEAN Frog Business Solutions Inc., offering a comprehensive review of compensation for $16,900, and a comprehensive organizational review for $14,900.
He acknowledged the council would be taking on new spending as it tries to bring the budget in line. But Ina argued that the studies may result in savings on their own. And even if they don’t, the parish will be addressing inequities in employee pay.
The two new council members, David Hill of Bayou Vista and James “Jimmy" Davis of Morgan City, weighed in.
Hill, speaking before the council made its decision on the outside agency allocations, said this: “It’s hard for me to spend this kind of money for this when we’re here to talk about cutting the Council on Aging, fire departments, recreation boards. …”
Davis argued on the other side, saying he’d seen such a study at a company where he was employed.
“It helped our company in a big way, stuff that the bosses weren’t seeing,” Davis said.
Bourg told the council about what may be a solution. He said the parish government’s insurance broker had offered to perform the compensation study at no cost.
That led Ina to ask Bourg to see whether the broker could do the organizational study with no charge, too.
“There’s only one thing better than free,” Ina said, “and that’s more free.”