Parish Council has a quiet talk about finances

FRANKLIN — The first in what is to be a series of budget and finance sessions for the Parish Council didn’t solve all the money problems.
But the session before the regular Aug. 13 council meeting exhibited a cooperative spirit on a topic that has led to heated debate in the first half of this term.
Council members, meeting as the budget committee, heard the administration’s views about the challenges ahead.
Parish President Sam Jones campaigned in 2023 on the idea that the parish government was squeezed by too much debt and failure to take advantage of grants for parish projects. The chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, Councilman the Rev. Craig Mathews, characterized the financial situation as a cash flow problem.
Their most recent clash came over a council appropriation to the Baldwin Police Department from a sales tax for Wards 1,2,3,4, 7 and 10. Jones said he was willing to use his power under the charter to block spending the parish doesn’t have money for.
The council may yet challenge Jones on that question. On Aug. 13, the members passed a motion to recommend that the council seek an attorney general’s opinion regarding the handling of the fund.
But the disagreement led the administration and council to agree on a series of updates on the parish’s financial situation.
On Aug. 13, they heard this from Chief Administrative Officer Paul Governale:
•Royalty Road Fund payments from the state are down sharply. The money comes from severance tax payments to the state that are returned in part to parish governments.
The most recent payment was for $275,000 from the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of this year.
“There were years we’d get $4 million, $7 million, $9 million,” Governale said. “Now it’s just dwindled down to hardly nothing.”
•The Harold J. “Babe” Landry Landfill has been a source of unexpected expenses.
Equipment repairs have cost the parish $215,000, and limestone has cost another $312,000. The parish has paid more than $900,000 to have dirt hauled to the site for cover, and a new scale is needed. That will cost $275,000.
•Debt service cost the parish $4 million.
•Work to restore electrical power at Kemper Williams Park cost $132,000 recently.
The council got a look at the human impact of budget-tightening measures when Almetra Franklin, CEO of the St. Mary-Vermilion Community Action Agency, sought $45,000 for a transportation program and $24,000 for a nutrition program for the elderly.
Her agency was among those that took cuts in parish funding last year.
Franklin said she understands the need for cuts.
“But at the end of the day, who is going to think about the people who need it most?” Franklin said.