By Harlan Kirgan
Editor
Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot and Police Chief Randy Fontenot are calling the 0.25 percent sales tax on Saturday’s ballot a little tax with a big impact.
The tax, which amounts to a penny on $4 spent, is to pay for increasing the starting police officer pay from $9.75 an hour to 12.75 an hour and beginning firefighter pay from $9 an hour to $11 an hour.
The ballot item states the tax is expected to raise about $640,000 a year, begin July 1 and run in perpetuity if passed.
The tax is to fund public safety salaries and related compensation.
The mayor says passing the tax is the top public safety issue in the city.
“This is every important especially not for right now, but for the future. It has been 21 years since the city put a tax proposal for police pay. We cannot wait another 21 years,” he said.
“We’ve got to try to attract new officers who are going to stay here and serve our community for many years,” he said.
Scott Fontenot is the son of Gary “Goose” Fontenot who served three terms as police chief for Eunice.
“I know when I was growing up the police officers knew who we were and we knew who they were,” he said.
Those officers know who was doing good and who was not, he said.
The police chief echoed the need for experience in the department.
“Experience in police work ... is very important. The longer you are here, the longer you see things, the more you know how to handle it, the better equipped you are to handle it because of your past experiences. Experience is number one here. We want to retain that experience and we’ve not been doing a good job at that at all,” the police chief said.
And he stressed it is a minute amount of money.
“We are looking at a penny for every $4 that you spend — a penny. If you spend less than $2 on a small purchase it is not even going to register or cost you an extra penny,” he said.
The mayor said, “The cost will be so minimal you won’t even notice it in your pockets.”
Despite the minimal amount, the mayor stressed its importance.
“I truly believe that if we don’t secure this money for our city and keep this money locally, we are going to leave that door open for a parish entity to come in here and grab that,” he said
About half of the city’s budget goes to public safety, he said.
“I know that if it does pass I believe you are going to immediately see a positive impact,” he said.
The police chief said it has become common in the past two years for the department have four to five openings.
Currently, there are five openings for police officers and three for jailers, he said.
The department is allocated 47 total employees. The jobs include 33 commissioned officers, including the police chief; five jailers; four record clerks; and four dispatchers.
Pay is the number one reason for the department losing employees and failing to obtain applicants, he said.
“We’ve had people who left here and went to other agencies or to other types of employment and we haven’t had any qualified applicants to replace them,” he said.
Other agencies are not having the retention or recruitment problems that the Eunice Police Department has, he said.
“We don’t pay enough to attract the applicants and they are leaving us for other departments because of better pay in other departments,” he said.
The police chief explained the difference in raises planned for fire and police employees if the tax passes.
Fire department employees receive a 2 percent annul cost of living raise and police receive 1 percent.
Over 10 or 20 years the 1 percent difference adds up, he said.
The mayor finds the revolving door for employees in the police department scary.
“We have people protecting the community who really don’t know the community and it is not their fault,” he said. By the time they start getting to know they go to other departments.”
A Eunice Police Officer’s Association’s study shows has the Eunice starting pay at $21,294. Carencro has the highest starting police pay at $40,404, followed by Scott at $40,294,80. Starting pay at other area police department is: $24,963.12 at Opelousas; $24,024 at Church Point; $26,710.32 at Iota; and $25,137.84 at Crowley.
An association information sheet states there have been two pay raises for Eunice Police in the past 21 years — in 1998 and 2009. The pay raise in 2009 ranged from 5 cents to $1.25 an hour based on rank.
“Unfortunately, in 2009 the minimum wage went up as well and washed out the raise the department received the same year,” the association stated.
A study four years ago found the department lost about 300 years of experience as officers left for other jobs.
Fire Chief Mike Arnold said his department has 19 employees, which includes the chief, nine firefighter-operators and nine captains.
Like the police department, starting pay for firefighters is often lower than area departments.
Eunice firefighters start at $9 hour. Starting pay for firefighters at other departments includes: $8.65, St. Landry District 3; $9.50, Opelousas; $10.44, Lafayette; $11.99, Carencro; and $12.22, Port Barre.
Police and firefighters gain certification upon successfully passing about three months of training. With the certification and a year of experience, police and firefighters receive a $500 a month stipend from the state.
If passed, the total sales tax in Eunice would rise from 10.2 percent to 10.45 percent. Prior to July 2018, the total was 10.75 percent, but was reduced when the state sales tax was cut.
Current sales tax rates paid in Eunice are: 4.45 percent, state; 3.55 percent, St. Landry Parish; and 2.2 percent city.
The current parish tax includes 2 percent, School Board; 0.75 percent, sheriff; 0.8 percent, solid waste.
On a purchase of $1,000, the 0.25 percent sales tax would add $2.50 to the bill.
