Harlan Kirgan
After Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot aired his department’s problem hiring and retaining employees, the mayor and aldermen joined in expressing their frustration with the city’s budget.
“We had another one resign today,” the police chief said. “Currently, I’m seven employees short. Six police officers and now a jailer, but it has been a constant hiring process ...”
Fontenot pointed to pay as an issue in hiring and keeping personnel. Starting pay for an officer is $9.75 a hour and jailers start at $8.50 a hour, he said.
There are no applicants or people on the civil service eligibility list, he said.
“We had one good candidate. I was pretty excited about hiring him. He called us back the day after the interview after we offered him a position and he said, ‘I’m sorry, I have to decline the position. You all just don’t pay enough,’” Fontenot said.
Fontenot said the Eunice Police starting pay is about $3 below most municipalities in the area.
Mayor Scott Fontenot said he has gone through the city’s budget since first being elected seven years ago with a goal of increasing police pay and found with current revenues is “quite impossible.”
The police department receives about a third of the city’s budget and with the fire department 50 percent of the money is taken.
The mayor said there are other departments that need funding.
“It is not a spending problem,” he said.
“The general public feels like they are over-taxed already ... but locally we are not,” he said.
The mayor said the city is doing a survey to determine how its revenues and expenditures compare to other cities.
Jack Burson, alderman at-large, said after 23 years in office he has been amazed the city has never run a deficit.
The city’s millage is 11.5 compared to more than 30 mills in Crowley, Ville Platte and Basile, he said.
“I don’t think you need a whole lot of explanation beyond that to know why public safety is ... 50 percent of the budget and it is $3 an hour below the starting pay of surrounding towns,” Burson said.
In other business, aldermen:
— Authorized the mayor to obtain bids for a splash pad. The mayor said if the bids allow it, the city will install two splash bids. No locations were given for the pads.
— Voted to send a resolution to the state Department of Transportation and Development requesting the overlay of Maple Avenue from the Crowley turn to the west city limits. Copies of the resolution will be sent to Rep. Phillip DeVillier, Sens. Gerald Boudreaux and Eric Lafleur and to former Eunice alderman Johnny Anderson who works in the governor’s office.
— Authorized Vernon McManus, city attorney, to work with the parish tax commission to meet requirements of a 1991 agreement on collection and reporting procedures. Burson is said the parish commission should provide the city with a lit of businesses paying sales taxess.
— Resolved to ask Eunice and St. Edmund highs schools to send students to the city meetings as suggested by Alderwoman Germaine Simpson.
— Authorized the mayor to execute an agreement with DOTD to upgrade runway lighting.
— Approved renewing 33 alcoholic beverage permits.
Mayor Fontenot said new playground equipment at Circle Park should be installed within 45 to 60 days.