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Charter review proposals go to parish council

A second charter review session of the St. Mary Parish Council held Wednesday brought some semblance of closure to a possible proposal to go before voters.
Some of the details remain in the air, but the council agreed to move ahead.
Councilman Dale Rogers continued presentation of an amendment that would raise the parish president’s salary from $12,000 to $78,000, and making the president the head of economic development for the parish. The president would have the option of hiring a director if required.
Councilman Patrick Hebert had presented an option to make the salary $40,000, and said he agreed that “something needs to be done.”
Hebert said he wanted to make the issue “very simple. The simpler it is, the better it will be, and if we want to change things later on, we always have that option. But we don’t want to confuse people on what needs to be done.”
He said the parish president’s job is “a heckuva lot of work…we shouldn’t always have to have a criteria that it has to be a wealthy man to be our parish president. No common man I know that has a job is going to be able to run for parish president.”
Rogers said $40,000 was not enough to “get somebody with the knowledge and experience” to fill the position of parish president.
“It’s not incentive to get the average man to run for parish president,” he said.
Councilman Gabe Beadle said that there is a provision in Rogers’ proposal that may prohibit a parish president from operating a personal business while in office. That section reads, “The president shall not engage in any activity unrelated to Parish government business that would interfere with or detract from the performance of duties as president.”
Rogers said he was open to removing that language.
Councilman James Bennett said he was against raises for any member of parish government. “We could be spending money on roads,” he said. “Internet on the west end, drainages that are stopped up, infrastructure we don’t have. That’s part of being a public servant.”
Bennett said because of the economic condition of the parish at present he doesn’t want to be associated with giving any raises.
Councilman J Ina said he would not support consolidating the parish president’s salary with that of the chief administrative officer.
Rogers pointed out that his ordinance would not consolidate those positions.
Councilman Paul Naquin said other parishes do have parish presidents also serve as CAO, and he would support that, but not until the current CAO, Henry “Bo” LaGrange has retired. He also said parish presidents must “take money out of their own pockets” to pay for many expenses incurred in their duties.
Legal counsel Eric Duplantis said it’s not proper to use public funds for things like chamber memberships, etc. but it can be used for governmental-related associations and such.
Councilman Glenn Hidalgo said he preferred a raise for the parish president should be accompanied by specified duties. “It’s been tried before, and it didn’t happen,” he said of previous efforts to raise the salary. “The parish president shouldn’t be running day-to-day operations, but I think he could be in charge of economic development.”
Councilman Craig Mathews said that while he respects the original home rule charter committee members and their intents, the document is more than 35 years old now. “Here we are having this discussion today and we’re finding it extremely challenging to adjust it because we have locked our citizens into a mindset that this is what it should be,” he said. “That mindset is based on 35 years ago…even we have adopted a concept that we don’t deserve a raise, the parish president doesn’t deserve a raise, even though the salaries were set for the economy 35 years ago.”
Mathews said there is no economic boost evident in the near future. “That is a devastating reality for this parish, to be locked in relentlessly to the mindset that we cannot give ourselves a raise or the parish president a raise because people are hurting…that is where we are, we are locked into an impoverished mindset in St. Mary Parish.”
Mathews also proposed adding to the ballot item, if presented to the voters, a provision that the parish council could allow for periodic pay increases “so you don’t have to go to the voters to approve it 45 years for now…because there would be incremental increases like any other job.”
Rogers said he’d be willing to add that to his proposed ordinance, for the next term of office. Beadle added there are council members around the state that make more than the St. Mary parish president.
Bennett’s motion to leave all salaries as they are failed, 3-8.
Rogers’ motion on the proposed ordinance, deleting the “other business” language regarding the parish president, passed 9-2, without the provision allowing for incremental pay raises. The full council will vote on the ordinance in regular session.

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