Harlan Kirgan
The fax machine and printer aren’t working in the St. Landry Parish Council office and that was on the agenda of the Council’s Administrative-Finance Committee on Wednesday.
Also on the agenda was an item for an update on the IT (information technology) person.
The discussion seemed as if Council members were hacked about the IT situation.
Parish President Bill Fontenot was not at the meeting, so it fell to Amanda Cain, finance director, to talk about the IT situation from parish government’s view.
Cain said Shane Garrard contract had been terminated. After the meeting, she said the split occurred on June 30.
Garrard has been available at $125 an hour to fix issues, she said.
The Council voted to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday to again discuss the issue and possibly approve a new IT vendor, but that has to come from the parish president.
Councilman Timmy Lejeune said to Cain, “I’m not pointing a finger at you, I’m just trying to figure out what our government is doing in terms of making sure that we continue to run smoothly after releasing the guy from his duties and we haven’t taken any action ...”
Cain said she had been trying to obtain three quotes for IT services, but is ready to make a recommendation after receiving two bids.
Councilman Ken Marks said, “I have a problem with the functionality of this government. I think we need to consider having a special meeting to discuss this situation in detail on how are we going to handle it going forward. We can’t wait month after month to discuss this thing. We need to have this resolved ASAP as far as I’m concerned.”
Lejeune pointed out the Council has no authority to hire an IT person. “That comes from the parish president’s office,” he said. “So, therefore, we can have a meeting and it doesn’t mean anything because our decision won’t be the one that will be made other than the decision made by Mr. Fontenot.”
Lejeune added, “I don’t think a meeting will fix the problem.”
Councilman Jerry Red said of the IT situation, “I think we put the cart before the horses. I think we let go of it before we had another one in place.”
IT problems are not a new problem in parish government.
Parish government was faulted in an audit released in June for failing to follow state law in a lease purchase agreement of $30,000 or more for a data center server.
The audit, for 2017, also faulted parish government for failing to get State Bond Commission approval for a data server deal.
The audit finding stated, “The results audit inquiry suggests that a verbal agreement existed between st. Landry Parish Government, St. Landry Parish Sheriff, 27th Judicial District, and St. Landry Parish Clerk of Court whereby each would retain a 25% interest in the procurement of a consolidated data center server. St. Landry Parish Government subsequently entered into a capital lease agreement requiring the Parish to pay 100% of the $259,143 server over a five year term. However, documentation obtained indicates that the Sheriff previously paid a 25% portion, or approximately $64,000, toward the cost of the above mentioned server.”
The finding also stated that there was a possible overlap in cost to parish government resulting in he server “...potentially costing the parish significantly more than originally agreed upon by all parties involved.”
At Wednesday’s meeting, Councilman Wayne Ardoin said his committee asked for an IT audit report for six or eight months before it was received.
The report was given in a session closed to public. Courthouse security was cited as a reason for making the meeting secret.