Photograph: Parish president Jessie Bellard and Finance Director Caryn Fulop. (Photograph by Freddie Herpin)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
The battle over a 2023 St. Landry Parish operating budget continued Wednesday night.
Council members voted 8-3 during an abbreviated special meeting to cut by 10 percent the expenditures contained in the annual budget first proposed by parish council president Jessie Bellard in December.
The parish since January has operated on a 2022 amended budget as Bellard and council members have wrangled over a projected $7.25 million in expenses.
Bellard said after the meeting Wednesday night that he remains comfortable operating the parish on the amount of money the Council has already approved in the 2022 budget.
The vote taken by council members during the special meeting Bellard also said afterward, is ineffectual, since it wasn’t crafted as part of an ordinance.
“I’m not changing anything (in the budget). The vote taken (Wednesday night) was done by resolution. Let them (council members) do it by ordinance and if it passes I will veto (the ordinance). (Council member) Harold Taylor is just playing games right now and I can play a game too until December,” Bellard said during an interview.
The Council acted on a proposal by Taylor to make the 10 percent cuts, which Taylor said will amount to just over $720,000.
Taylor told other council members that he is particularly concerned about spending one-time American Rescue Act funding for expenses mandated by the state.
Especially disconcerting Taylor said, is a proposed $689,000 estimated expense that Bellard plans to spend for housing parish prisoners.
Many of those prisoners are costing the parish extra money since they are incarcerated in other parishes due to the overcrowding at the St. Landry Parish Jail, Bellard has said previously.
Bellard said the anticipated construction for a trustee dormitory across from the parish courthouse is expected to alleviate the number of prisoners located now in jails outside St. Landry.
Taylor called the Bellard-proposed budget a “voo-doo budget.”
Bellard said there is enough expected revenue for him to transfer money from other budfetary line items in order to cover any perceived deficits.
Finance Committee chairman Coby Clavier said after the meeting that the size of parish government is over-expanded.
Council member Nancy Carriere said in another post-meeting interview that she is concerned that the administration is spending too heavily.
Additionally Carriere said she prefers not to experience another situation like 2016 when the parish had to cut employees, especially in the public works department.
“The Council has to answer to the people.and that’s the bottom line The majority has spoken (Wednesday night). We need to be cautious going forward,” Carriere said..
Voting to approve the 10 percent in cuts were Taylor, Carriere, Clavier, Mildred Thierry, Easton Shelvin, Alvin Stelly, Wayne Ardoin and Jimmie Edwards.
Council members Vivian Olivier, Dexter Brown and Tim LeJeune voted “no.”
