The first public step was taken toward raising the pay of the city’s public safety employees with the scheduling of a public hearing and special meeting of the Board of Aldermen on March 6.
The action came at Tuesday’s Board meeting in which Mayor Scott Fontenot and Dale Sittig, former Public Service Commission member and state representative, spoke about the need for a 0.25 percent sales tax to pay for raises.
Starting pay for a Eunice Police officer is $9.75 a hour and it’s $9 an hour at the fire department.
Sittig said the action is long overdue.
“Let me tell you, I served 28 years in public office. I never found a tax I like, but taxes are necessary if government is going to operate we’ve got to have some taxes,” Sittig said.
“I think it is overdue,” Sittig said of the pay raise. “When I look at the pay scale, what our policemen are making, and look at Mamou, Iota and Basile and they are making more than our policemen, it is a little embarrassing.”
Sittig said his grandson, a high school junior, recently went to work at Kroger’s in Lake Charles and is paid $9.25 an hour.
“In three months, if he is still there, he gets a 50-cent raise,” Sittig said. “He is going make the same thing as our starting police.”
Sittig said there hasn’t been a city tax increase in Eunice in more than 30 years.
“Again, I got to tell you property taxes are not one of the most popular taxes they got,”he said.
Sittig said he does not live in the city limits, but benefits from city services.
“I think we are very fortunate over here in Eunice to have the services that we have, but we’ve got do something different,” he said.
Mayor Scott Fontenot said the proposed tax means “... for every $4 you spent it will cost you a penny. For every $100 you spend it will cost you a quarter.”
And he added, “Look around the room ... Tell me if you would put yourself in that uniform for $9.75 an hour and I would guarantee not many would.”
Fontenot said the city of Eunice collects third of what surrounding cities collection in property taxes.
“Back in 2004, the sheriff’s department pushed for a three-quarter cent sales tax to fund their operations. It was voted down overall in the city of Eunice. One precinct passed it, but it passed overall in the parish and right now the city of Eunice, the businesses who are collecting this tax paid by the citizens here and the citizens who shop here we contribute $1.8 million annually to the sheriff’s department operations,” Fontenot said.
“We are asking for one-quarter percent,” he said.
“We can’t keep living off revenues from the 1980s. It is 2019 guys and we’ve got to come together. We’ve got to do this,” he said.
Fontenot said if the city does not act another entity in the parish will ask for the additional sales tax.
After Fontenot spoke, aldermen Ernie Blanchard and Marion “Nootsie” Sattler motion to approve the resolution calling for the tax election, but Ginny Moody, city clerk, put the brakes on.
The Board then proceeded to call a public hearing and special meeting on March 6. That’s then the Board would call for a special election on May 4.
If passed, the 0.25 percent tax is projected to raise about $614,000 annually.
After the meeting, Fontenot said it has not been determined what the starting pay for police would be if the tax passes.
