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BERWICK — The Berwick town government has a new budget for 2023-24, and it includes money to hire an additional police officer.

The Town Council passed its budget at Tuesday’s regular monthly meeting by a 4-1 vote. It takes effect with the start of the new budget year Oct. 1.

Also Tuesday, the council authorized an agreement under which money appropriated by the Legislature this spring will be used to replace the town’s water meters. An ordinance introduced Tuesday would raise water charges for commercial customers.

And the council approved a request by three Berwick High students for a permit for the annual homecoming parade Sept. 28.

Budget

Berwick’s new budget anticipates about $6.9 million in revenue, or 8.1% less than it expects to have taken in by Sept. 30. Total spending is expected to be $5.3 million, down 14.7%.

The accumulated fund balance will rise slightly to just over $4 million, or enough to cover town spending for nine months. Auditors recommend a balance big enough to cover two months.

The big drop in expected revenue, about $935,000, is from intergovernmental transfers, reflecting grants the town received as one-time money. The same is true in spending.

General government is expected to cost $1.2 million, nearly a third less than this year.

But the budget also more than doubles expenditures for the Volunteer Fire Department to $375,000 and gives the Police Department a 6% boost to $1.4 million.

After an amendment passed Tuesday , the budget includes an extra $79,000 for an additional police officer. That provision also led to the lone no vote on the budget.

The council introduced the budget Aug. 8. Then, Councilman Lud Henry noted that the money for the new police officer, which he understood to have been approved at a budget meeting, wasn’t in the 2023-24 proposal. Chief Administrative Officer Newell “Bubba” Slaughter said it could be added.

And the amended budget passed Tuesday did just that. Henry asked and learned that $50,000 for the officer came from a delay in the purchase of a police vehicle, with the rest to come from surplus funds.

Council members James Richard, Kevin Hebert, Colleen Askew and Raymond Price voted for the budget. Henry voted against it.

“It was a disagreement over how we did it,” Henry said.

The council had already added an officer after a town officer was reassigned to be Berwick’s school resource officer.

Meters

The Legislature’s capital spending budget for this year included more than $570,000 for new water meters in Berwick. The devices will allow the town to save manpower by automating meter-reading.

On Tuesday, the council authorized Mayor Duval Arthur to enter an agreement with the state for the project.

Also Tuesday:

—The council introduced an ordinance that will raise water fees for commercial customers and a handful of industrial users.

The ordinance would raise the charge for the first 2,000 gallons each month to $25 from $15, and raise the charge for each additional 1,000 gallons to $6.50 from $5.50.

The ordinance wouldn’t affect residential water bills.

If the ordinance follows the normal course, it will come up for a public hearing and passage vote at the Oct. 10 meeting.

—Berwick High students Alyse Harrison, Jude Tarver and Isabell Ortiz asked the council to OK a permit for the school’s homecoming parade at 4 p.m. Sept. 28 in Country Club Estates. The council approved the permit unanimously.

Berwick’s homecoming will have a “Wizard of Oz” theme.

The homecoming game will be Sept. 29 against Thrive Academy.

—Leslie Smith and Dee Hymel of Roots and Ribbons invited the council to the Puttin’ On The Pink 5K run and two-mile walk at 4 p.m. Oct. 7 at Patterson’s Morey Park.

The event will raise money to support St. Mary breast cancer patients and survivors.

—Political candidates continue make the rounds as the Oct. 14 primary approaches. Appearing at the council meeting Tuesday were Parish Council District 10 hopefuls Reginald Weary and Angelena Brocato, District 4 candidate Javon Charles, parish president candidate Tim LeBlanc and state Senate District 21 candidate Henry “Bo” LaGrange.

Thibodaux Regional Health System announced the addition of Dr. Elizabeth Ansert, foot and ankle specialist, to the active medical staff.

Ansert is available to care for patients at Thibodaux Regional Foot & Ankle Center located at 290 Bowie Road, Thibodaux, LA, 985-493-4990.

Ansert received an undergraduate degree in biology, psychology and criminal justice from Indiana University in Bloomington. She received a Master of Arts degree in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida.

Ansert earned her doctorate in podiatric medicine degree from Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine in Miami Shores and completed her residency at St. Vincent Hospital in Worchester, Massachusetts, where she served as chief resident.

Additionally, Ansert completed a fellowship in diabetic limb salvage at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.

She specializes in all foot and ankle conditions, with an emphasis on diabetic limb salvage, wound care, and diabetic foot care.

For Ansert, Thibodaux is similar to her hometown in Lanesville, Indiana. When she first visited Thibodaux, she felt an immediate sense of comfort and a welcoming community, the hospital said in a press release.

Officials from the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced successful hatchings of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle for the second year in a row on the Chandeleur Islands.

The endangered species was discovered nesting on the islands in August 2022, marking the first time the species had been observed there in over 75 years. Since this discovery, over 100 sea turtle crawls have been documented on the island, making it one of the highest-density nesting beaches in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

“The recent observation of Kemp’s ridley hatchlings on the Chandeleur Islands illustrates the importance of the work CPRA and our partners are doing along the barrier island chain to restore vital nesting habitats,” said CRPA Chairman Bren Haase. “Restoring these barrier islands is not only necessary to protect the wildlife that call them home, but also to offer a first line of defense to inland communities that have suffered as the islands have deteriorated.”

The barrier islands along Louisiana’s easternmost point gained national prominence when President Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1904 creating the Breton National Wildlife Refuge, which includes the Breton Islands and Chandeleur Islands.
In the years since the area has been severely impacted by natural and man-made disasters. In 2005 a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina led to significant damage to the island chain. Five years later, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill decimated the wildlife and marine habitat, impacting turtles, fish, birds, and other species that rely on the islands’ resources.

While the USFWS believes that 89 percent of the refuge’s acreage has disappeared since President Roosevelt visited the area in 1915, efforts to restore the islands offer hope for the future.  

“Breton National Wildlife Refuge will continue to serve the purpose for which it was originally established – to provide habitat for the conservation of colonial nesting seabirds and other wildlife,” said Neil Lalonde, Project Leader, Southeast Louisiana Refuge Complex. “On Breton Island, we’ve restored 426 acres of beach, dune, and back-barrier marsh habitat. Protecting and restoring these fragile and dynamic barrier islands provides countless benefits, not only for wildlife, but also for coastal communities as they form a first line of defense. Large-scale projects, such as this one, substantially contribute to restoring and protecting Louisiana’s natural resources and coastal wetlands.”

In addition to nesting habitats for endangered sea turtles, the Breton National Wildlife Refuge is the largest waterbird nesting location in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Reddish Egrets and Sooty Terns are among the species that utilize the habitat provided by the islands to build their nests and rear their young.  One endemic species, the Chandeleur Gull, utilizes the islands as their only nesting ground in the entire world.

While the island chain is an important nesting ground for many species, others use it as a winter escape. Each winter, tens of thousands of migratory birds including Piping Plovers, Red Knots, Redhead Ducks, and shorebirds visit the islands to take advantage of the seagrass meadows and warmer climate.  In a typical year, in total, over 300,000 birds utilize the islands.

“The Chandeleur Islands are not only critically important to Louisiana and our state’s fish and wildlife resources; many of the species that rely on the habitats provided by the Chandeleurs spend a large part of their lives in other parts of the Gulf Coast - and beyond,” said Robert Shadoin, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

 “Restoring these islands is not only important to making Louisiana whole following the Deepwater Horizon spill, it’s also important to making our region whole and protecting our valuable shared resources.”

Beginning in the summer of 2022, CPRA and LDWF began monitoring the Chandeleur Islands to inform a restoration strategy and project design.

“The recent discovery of endangered sea turtle hatchlings and the staggering numbers of birds that have been documented visiting and nesting along the Chandeleur Island Chain is encouraging,” said CPRA Executive Director Greg Grandy. “We have irrefutable evidence that life is flourishing on the islands, but we also know that it is fragile.

"Scientific modeling predicts that without major restoration efforts, the Chandeleur Islands will be under water in just a few decades. CPRA remains committed to working with our partners to protect these crucial habitats and the species that depend on them.”

Engineering and design plans for restoration efforts along the Chandeleur islands are already underway and are slated to be completed in 2025, at which time construction activities may begin. CPRA is working to identify a funding source for the construction of the project, which is expected to exceed $200 million.

An average of over 1,000 callers each month to the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services child abuse hotline in 2022 abandoned their calls while on hold, according to a new audit.

The Louisiana legislative auditor issued a performance report last week that examined the Department of Children and Family Services’ processes for receiving and acting on child abuse and neglect complaints in fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

The audit follows several reports of child abuse and fatalities in 2022 that triggered the Senate Health and Welfare Committee to launch a broader review of the department’s practices, staffing and leadership.

Suspected child abuse in Louisiana can be reported to the Department of Children and Family Services through a statewide hotline and a Mandated Reporter Portal online. Most reports come from mandatory reporters such as school personnel and health professionals, with 57,164 or 29% of the 197,302 reports from 2018 through 2022 received through the portal and the rest through the hotline.

“In addition, emergency reports submitted through the (portal) increased by 47.3%, from 239 reports in fiscal year 2019 to 352 reports in fiscal year 2022, despite the (portal) informing mandatory reporters to report emergency reports through the hotline,” auditors wrote.

The audit shows that the Department of Children and Family Services centralized intake staff fell short of the only performance metric of 66% of calls to the hotline answered live, with that percentage at 60.3% in 2022. Analysis of an average of 6,331 calls per month that year showed the average speed to answer was 6.9 minutes.

Of the 6,331, an average of 3,820 were answered live, 1,111 opted to receive a callback if staff were busy, and 1,183 hung up before staff could answer. Another 218 on average hung up before staff finished the report, auditors wrote.

The Department of Children and Family Services contracts with a software vendor for the hotline that is required to retain call recordings and other data for five years, but auditors found data missing for 15 months of the audit period and incomplete for three.

Other analysis found the agency could work with its vendor to improve data metrics to allow officials to target shift schedules for call center staff better and minimize changeover during peak call times.

“Since 2011, (centralized intake) has used nine overlapping shifts but these shifts are not based on an analysis of call volume,” auditors wrote. “Our analysis of call volume data from calendar year 2022 found that intake may be overstaffed from approximately 5 p.m. until 2 a.m. on any given weekday and … staff could be reallocated to shifts during the peak call period between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“In addition, we found that Thursdays and Fridays had the highest daily average speed to answer calls and the most calls abandoned during the calendar year 2022,” the report read

The Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Terri Ricks responded to the audit report with a letter to Louisiana Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack on Aug. 31 that explained how the department is working to improve. Centralized intake managers use daily hotline data to adjust staff on daily shifts, but DCFS is working with its vendor to improve the data and its retention.

The agency is also working with Franklin Associates to educate mandatory reporters about emergency reports, to ensure they’re received through the hotline instead of the portal, which would help to minimize response times.

In addition, “DCFS will research and implement performance targets and include data analysis as part of the overall (continuous quality improvement) process to identify improvements in the intake process,” Ricks wrote.