Photograph: City employee Mark Martin addresses the Board of Aldermen. (Photograph by Bobby Ardoin)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
Opelousas municipal employees told Board of Aldermen members Wednesday night that the passage of a proposed Nov. 18 millage increase is necessary for them to afford cost of living necessities.
“I’ve been working (for the street department) for six years now and we’ve never gotten anything. We can’t live off of what we make,” employee Xavier Frank told members of the Board during a special meeting.
The special meeting convened to discuss introducing an amended budget for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31 and a proposed new 2023-24 budget, ended with a millage proposition conversation among city workers and Opelousas elected officials.
At an Aug. 8 Board of Aldermen meeting, the Board voted to place a 10-year, 30-mill property tax increase on the Nov. 18 ballot in order to provide city workers with pay raises.
If passed, the budget proposition indicates that the increased mills would provide about $3.2 million more in revenue.
City worker Mark Martin, who told the Board he has worked 13 years for the city, said municipal crews have been working in triple-digit heat this summer for salaries that range just above minimum wage.
“What we do out there takes a certain type of person. We do need that (millage increase) money, even though it’s fifty cents,” Martin said.
At this point the Board has not decided whether to propose a fifty cents per hour for city workers or consider raising starting salaries to ten dollars hourly in connection with proposed millage increase.
Budget Committee chairman Charles Cummings said the property tax rate currently charged to Opelousas property owners is 7.13 mills. That amount, Cummings said, is considerably less than Ville Platte.
Code Enforcement Director Margaret Doucet said Ville Platte property owners pay 33 mills annually in property taxes.
Doucet said she sympathizes with the hourly wages paid to workers.
“These are the guys who are always the ones that are left behind. Whenever we need something done, these are the first guys that you call,” Doucet said.
Cummings said that if the millage is passed, the money collected from the increase will be placed in a special fund designated for employee salaries.
“That money is not going to the general fund. The money we collect off (the millage) will be dedicated,” Cummings indicated.
Cummings added that increasing the property tax millage is a necessity.
“If we don’t pass it, we are going to be in trouble everywhere in the city,” said Cummings.
Alderman Milton Batiste III said the city administration and the Board should perform what Batiste said is a preliminary compensation study in order to better outline costs associated with proposed millage.
Opelousas Police Chief Graig LeBlanc said he supported the Batiste proposal.
“We need to show that (the city) is committed (to passing the proposition) and what that ten dollars is going to look like,” LeBlanc.
St. Landry Now. com has requested a copy of the proposed budget for 2023-24 and the 2022-23 budgets which have already been distributed publicly to members of the Board of Aldermen and the heads of city departments.
The city administration has not acted on the verbal requests by the news website for a copy of the budgets.
