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The Patterson city government is trimming four hours a week off the schedules of nonessential employees, hoping to make up for some of the revenue lost to COVID-19 restrictions.
Patterson City Hall will continue to be closed to the public after noon on weekdays. Beginning May 15, employees other than those who work with the Police Department, the natural gas system or the water plant will go home at noon Fridays.
The move was announced at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, conducted by live-stream and teleconferencing.
“We’re trying to be proactive,” Mayor Rodney Grogan said.
Local governments across the region rely heavily on sales tax revenue. The restrictions placed on businesses, including the outright closure of enterprises such as barber and beauty shops and gyms, will have an impact on government income.
The May 15 date coincides with the end of the current stay at home order by Gov. John Bel Edwards and the day when state government hopes to move into Phase One of the Trump administration’s Make America Open Again guidelines. Whether Louisiana enters Phase One, a limited lifting of some COVID-19 restrictions, depends on whether the state has demonstrated two straight weeks of improvement in the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
Grogan said the four-hour reduction resulted from consultations with Accountant Reginald Weary and other department heads.
Employees deemed to be providing essential services, including police and utility workers, will work their full shifts.
“But I’m asking that they keep the overtime down,” Grogan said. “The overtime is killing us when it comes down to throwing us off the budget because if someone is sick we have to pay the sick pay as well as overtime for the other workers.”
Also May 15, Patterson city employees will be ordered to wear masks when dealing with the public. Grogan said the order doesn’t apply to the public at large, but he urged people to follow public health guidelines by wearing masks in public.
Also Tuesday, Grogan said Patterson’s Census 2020 response rate so far is 39%.
He has urged residents to take part in the Census as a way to make sure the city government is in line for any government assistance to which it may be entitled.

A Louisiana legislative committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that would restrict how much of the money the state expects to collect that lawmakers are allowed to spend.
The nod from House Appropriations is the first step for an effort that has failed in prior years.
By law, the governor and legislators cannot call for spending more in the next fiscal year than what the Revenue Estimating Conference predicts will come in from taxes, fees and other sources. Under House Bill 118, lawmakers would be further restricted to 98 percent of that estimate.
Predicting how much money is likely to flow into state coffers is an inexact science, and no one expects the REC to get it exactly right. Rep. Rick Edmonds, the Baton Rouge Republican who authored the bill, said the change would provide a cushion in case the REC overestimates how much money will come in, he said.
But if the estimates are low or pretty close to accurate, state government would create surpluses. While surpluses can’t be spent on general government operations, they can be dedicated to one-time expenses like roads and bridges, used to pay down retirement debt, or put aside in the “rainy day” fund.
A healthier “rainy day” fund could come in handy if there is another shock to the state’s economy similar what is being experienced worldwide due to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, supporters said. But detractors say a time of unprecedented crisis is exactly the wrong time to be limiting the amount lawmakers can spend to address that crisis.
The bill would go into effect for the 2021-22 budget year, when it might cost the state general fund as much as $206 million, according to the estimate prepared by the legislative fiscal office that acknowledges the revenue uncertainty created by the pandemic.
Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge, worried about the cuts to services the artificial limit would require. She noted that health care and higher education often are first on the chopping block. Health care will only be more critical as the state deals with and recovers from the pandemic, she said, and higher education has only just now been stabilized after a decade of cuts.
“I just think it would be a travesty if we have to go back and cut them again,” she said.
House Appropriations also advanced bills by Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, that, taken together, would limit the growth of state spending to 5 percent per year at most. The change would require a state constitutional amendment, which means two-thirds of lawmakers and a majority of voters would have to approve. If enacted, a two-thirds majority of legislators still could vote to exceed the cap if they felt it necessary.
Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the fiscally conservative Pelican Institute for Public Policy, said having a spending limit helps to “smooth out the ups and downs” of state budget cycles. The state has had an expenditure limit since the 1990s, speakers said; Beaullieu’s bills would update the methodology.

Louise Anita Plessala, 69, a native of Morgan City and resident of Berwick, died Friday, April 24, 2020.
She is survived by a son, Benjamin Chaisson; and a host of other relatives.
She was preceded in death by her parents and a brother.
Hargrave Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Jeanerette-based Metal Shark’s Bayou La Batre, Alabama, shipyard has delivered its first new build, a 120-foot by 35-foot’ river towboat for Florida Marine Transporters Inc. of Mandeville, the company said in a news release.
The four-decked, welded-steel, USCG Subchapter “M”-compliant towboat Stephanie Pasentine, which bears the distinction of being Louisiana-based Metal Shark’s first-ever steel new build and also its first inland towboat, was designed by John W. Gilbert Associates Inc.
The vessel’s twin Cat 3512C marine diesel engines deliver 2,011 horsepower each at 1,600 RPM and turn 100-inch by 69-inch stainless steel propellers through Twin Disc model MGX5600DR reverse reduction gears with a 6.56:1 ratio. Sleeping accommodations and facilities have been provided for a nine-person crew.
The new towboat is the first delivery in a three-vessel contract with FMT announced in late 2018, signaling Metal Shark’s entry into the inland towboat market following its acquisition of the assets of Horizon Shipbuilding earlier that year. With the purchase, Metal Shark, best known as a builder of welded aluminum vessels, assumed ownership of a fully developed 35-acre Alabama shipyard and began to expand into steel shipbuilding.
Metal Shark has significantly grown its Alabama operations since acquiring the yard, the company said.
Under the direction of company VP Doug Barrow, formerly the general manager of Great Lakes Towing Co. and Great Lakes Shipyard, and new construction mManager OW Brown, Metal Shark Alabama has grown from the 23 original employees acquired in the 2018 purchase to over 150 employees today.
Multiple steel vessels are currently under construction at the yard, including two additional 120-foot x 35-foot’ towboats for FMT, as well as a 70-foot steel Z-drive tugboat for North Carolina DOT. Metal Shark Alabama is also highly active in the vessel refit and repair sector, with several projects typically underway at any given time.
“Since 2018 we have invested in our Alabama operations by growing our workforce, engaging new clients, and implementing Metal Shark’s well-proven serialized construction methodologies,” explained Metal Shark CEO Chris Allard.
“Today as we celebrate the delivery of our first Alabama-built vessel, our first steel new build, and our first inland towboat, I’d like to thank our employees, and particularly our customer Mr. Dennis Pasentine, owner of Florida Marine Transporters. We were fortunate to earn his business and I am proud of our relationship, which is one I hope to continue well into the future.”
Metal Shark is a diversified shipbuilder specializing in the design and construction of welded aluminum and steel vessels from 16 feet to over 300 feet for defense, law enforcement and commercial operators. Key customers include the United States Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, Army, foreign militaries, law enforcement agencies, fire departments, passenger vessel operators, pilot associations, towboat operators, and other clients worldwide. With three fully self-contained shipbuilding facilities in Alabama and Louisiana plus a dedicated engineering facility in Croatia, Metal Shark’s 500-plus employees produce over 200 vessels per year.