Will the parish be able to save $300,000 next year?

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Parish Council deliberates on a budget tugged in many directions
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A year ago St. Landry Parish Government faced ending the year with a $670,000 deficit in its general fund.
Fast forward to the Nov. 1 Administrative-Finance Committee and Amanda Cain, finance director, declared she wants to save $300,000 in a contingency fund in 2018. And, she says she wants to do that for five years to tuck away $1.5 million.
Recently the Parish Council approved a $1.5 million line of credit with Washington State Bank to help bridge the gap between expenditures and revenues which land on the books after the first of the year.
Cain said her goal is to have enough money saved so the parish government doesn’t need that bridge loan money.
The Parish Council and administrators are working on the 2018 budget and scheduled at special meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday to continue their public talks about the budget.
“I worked the numbers a little bit and I know that if I left a $300,000 surplus in the general fund we all know what would happen. We would go down to zero more than likely,” Cain said as a reason for establishing a contingency fund.
“It is kind of like having a savings account,” she said.
The preliminary budget now has a $151,000 deficit, she said.
“We need to get that down to zero,” she said.
Cain said she cut some professional services — engineering, legal, etc. — and dues and subscriptions.
Mandated expenses caught her eye, she said.
Mandated expenses are those by offices such as the district attorney, judges, clerk of court, registrar of voters, assessor, city courts and other other expenses required by the state to be funded.
Cain wants those offices to cut their expenses by 5 percent in 2018.
“The all provided all of their requests,” she said of the offices. “Of course, I did not put any of that in there because I could have never balanced the budget.”
The preliminary 2018 general budget, which runs from January through December, has $6 million in revenue and $6.2 million in expenses.
If the preliminary budget were approved, the parish government’s ending balance would drop from $1.2 million this year to $1 million next year.
In response, the committee approved sending a request to the offices with mandated expenses to provide a breakdown of the employees, how much they are paid, how much is paid in benefits and retirement.
The committee also asked that Parish President Bill Fontenot provide the same information about parish government employees.
Parish Council member Ken Marks said, “I do recall one of the statements saying we basically have to pay whatever they send us within reason. Well, we don’t know if it is within reason if we don’t know the details.”
Timmy Lejeune, a Council member, said, “We really need to see where these salaries are and where the health insurance is being spent. I’m not saying that anybody is doing anything wrong...”
Coby Clavier asked if the budget could include more employees for the parish road and bridge crews because of a mounting backlog of work orders.
The road crews were cut back in a layoff earlier this of 17 employees.
Wayne Ardoin, committee chairman, said people care about the road conditions more than many other services.
“We need money to put on the roads. Wea are caught in a dilemma and that’s all about money and we’re in a bind,” Ardoin said.
Parish President Bill Fontenot said there has been compromises about mandated expenses.
Officeholder could back with additional expense requests, he said.
Budget requests to the Parish Council include:
Clerk of Court, $249,605.
27th Judicial District, $20,000 for capital outlays, $596,000 for court reporter salaries and $20,000 for law clerk salaries.
District Attorney, $141,000 for DA and assistant DA wages, $535,000 for staff wages and $500,000 for operating expenses.
Opelousas City Court, $41,500.
Eunice City Court, $33,750.
Opelousas City Marshal, $44,750.
Eunice City Marshal, $25,100.
Registar of Voters, $134,498.
Coroner, $176,600.
LSU AgCenter, $$48,000.
The Parish Council released letters from the officeholders that included their requests.