Finance Chairman Wants $$$ Records
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Now.com Editor
St. Landry Parish Council Finance Committee Chairman Harold Taylor has indicated that he is officially requesting extensive financial record documents and transactions that were made by parish government administration during the past five years..
The official records request made by Taylor through the Louisiana Public Records Law records request protocol, asks parish president Jessie Bellard or his administrative employees to provide Taylor with detailed copies of nearly all aspects of parish financial records from 2021 through 2025.
Included in the records request is information contained in parish cash and bank accounts, payroll and compensation, debt obligations, accounts payable and liabilities, contracts, credit cards, purchasing activity, financial reporting, professional service contracts, grant obligations and other information that Taylor thinks is relevant to parish government financial activity since Bellard became president.
Taylor did not present his financial request information or discuss it with other members of a regular Finance Committee meeting on Wednesday night.
Instead St. Landry Now.com and other print media that routinely cover parish government meetings and activities were presented by Taylor with copies of his request prior to the beginning of the two committee meetings.
Taylor is also asking that the parish comply with state records request law and provide him within three working business days all the information that he is requesting.
“If the requested records cannot be produced within that time frame, please notify me immediately in writing via email with an explanation,” Taylor wrote in connection with the request.
Bellard, who did not attend the Wednesday night meeting, is recuperating from a recent accident, said parish emergency director Van Reed.
Reed, who represented the parish during the meeting, said that Bellard is undergoing a healing process due to the accident, but Bellard has indicated to Reed that Bellard, who lives near Eunice, is still going to work regularly at the St. Landry Parish Courthouse in Opelousas..
Taylor has questioned Bellard frequently during the past several months over parish finances.
In addition to clashes with Taylor during meetings, Bellard and several other Council members have indicated that they opposed the presence of Taylor, who appeared in August during a Louisiana State Bond Commission meeting where Bellard asked for additional operating revenues that Bellard says will be backed by money owed to the parish from solar panel funding in 2026.
After listening to separate statements made by Taylor and Bellard at the meeting held in Baton Rouge, Bond Commission members delayed a request by Belalrd to obtain a $4.6 million line of credit until the September meeting
Bellard said obtaining the $4.6 million is necessary in order to help cover state mandated expenses.
The bulk of the expenses for the $6.5 million 2025 budget include the costs of parish inmates, which Bellard notes will cost the parish about $1.5 million this year.
In the budget approved by the Council, Bellard shows that $4.6 million will be required this year to cover all required state expenses that the parish is expected to pay in 2025.
