Cantrelle requested raises to approve health insurance, DA says

Lafourche Parish President Jimmy Cantrelle is alleged to have strong-armed parish staff into requesting raises for certain parish employees in exchange for accepting a healthcare plan favored by the parish council. 

Lafourche District Attorney Cam Morvant announced in his findings from multiple investigations into administrative malfeasance that he did not find any criminal activity by Cantrelle or parish administration. However, Morvant is sending his findings regarding the request for raises to the Louisiana Board of Ethics for review, and he also found “numerous civil service procedure violations and potentially a civil rights violation” in regards to how the parish handled an employee’s drug screen. 

The Lafourche Parish Council requested opinions from Morvant to investigate possible criminal activity regarding the drug screen as well as bribery and extortion at the Dec. 13 council meeting. Morvant released his opinions on Dec. 21 and found Cantrelle to have instructed Parish Administrator Reggie Bagala call council members and say the parish president would approve the renewal of the parish’s current health insurance plan, supported by the council and a large majority of parish employees, in exchange for a switch in positions between Deputy Director of Communications Caroline Eschette and Director of Communications Doug Cheramie, a $5,000 raise for Eschette and a $3,000 raise for Plans and Permits Director Tony Breaux.  

In his opinion on the drug screen, Morvant found former Finance and Human Resources Director Tommy Lasseigne to have purposefully placed an employee on the “random” drug screen list. However, Lasseigne was not the employee’s validly approved appointing authority according to Lafourche Civil Service procedures and thus was not authorized to make such decisions. According to the opinion, the parish produced a memorandum months later making Lasseigne the employee’s appointing authority, although neither the civil service director nor parish administrator were given a copy of the memorandum when it was produced, and they did not find out about its existence until months after its production. Morvant said these actions could possibly open up the parish to legal repercussions. 

“While these violations of civil service procedure are certainly troubling and potentially have exposed the parish to civil litigation regarding the employee at issue, it does not appear as though any criminal laws were violated in this instance,” Morvant wrote. 

Cantrelle said he would wait to see what happens with the state ethics review but otherwise offered no comment on Morvant’s opinions. 

“I’d rather not comment on that on this point,” Cantrelle said. 

According to Morvant’s other opinion, Cantrelle sought to leverage the hotly-contested debate over the parish’s health insurance plan into raises for Eschette and Breaux and forced Bagala to facilitate the deal. The parish council voted down multiple measures from administration to change the parish’s health plan to a partially-self-funded plan, which Cantrelle said could save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, instead of renewing the current, fully-funded plan with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Lafourche Parish conducted a survey of parish employees regarding the health plans, and, according to Eschette, 12 percent of employees responded, with 92 percent of respondents saying they wanted a renewal of the BCBS plan. 

Morvant said he interviewed Cantrelle, Bagala and Public Works Director James Barnes for his investigation. According to the opinion, Bagala said that on Nov. 16 Cantrelle went to Bagala’s office and said he “was not happy that he was giving in and not getting anything in return” in regards to the health insurance plan. Both Bagala and Barnes, who entered Bagala’s office as he and Cantrelle discussed the matter, said the parish president told Bagala to call council members and say Cantrelle wanted the raises for Eschette and Breaux, as well as the position swap for Eschette and Cheramie, in return for presenting the renewal of the BCBS plan for council approval. 

Both Bagala and Barnes said Bagala asked Cantrelle if he was sure he wanted him to do that, to which Cantrelle answered in the affirmative, according to the opinion. Bagala in turn called Councilman Armand Autin, who did not answer, and left a voicemail. Bagala then called Councilwoman Luci Sposito and proposed the deal to her, after which Autin returned the call and spoke with Bagala. Both Barnes and Bagala said after the Autin call, Bagala told Cantrelle he did not feel right making any more calls. 

On Dec. 5, Sposito emailed Morvant seeking an ethics opinion regarding the call she received from Bagala. Sposito noted the “official” tones from Bagala sounded unusual and recounted her conversation with Bagala, which she described to Morvant as almost verbatim. Sposito wrote she asked Bagala if she was on speaker phone, which he said she was not, and then asked if he was in front of Cantrelle while on the phone, which he affirmed. Bagala proposed the raise and position-switch deal to Sposito, and she asked him to repeat the entire deal, which he did, according to her email. The following is text from Sposito’s email detailing the call. 

“I said something like, ‘Reggie, this is really screwed up. I feel like he’s got a gun to my head.’ 

He replied, ‘He’s asked me to call all the Council Members and that’s what I’m doing.’” 

Sposito said she told Bagala she approved the proposal, although she then told him “we’ll deal with this later, after the healthcare issue is resolved.” Sposito said immediately following the conversation, she understood the request to be immoral but did not consider the ethical lines crossed and the necessity to report the call until sending the email to Morvant. 

After Assistant District Attorney Lisa Orgeron contacted him regarding the investigation, Autin detailed in an email his conversation with Bagala regarding the raises. Autin said Bagala also proposed the same deal regarding the raises and healthcare plan. Autin said he told Bagala he did not believe the council would see the raises as fiscally responsible since Cheramie would receive no reduction in salary in light of the position swap and he could not ascertain whether the council would approve the swap regardless. According to Autin, Bagala called shortly after to tell him he could forget the title swap conversation held earlier.

While two high-ranking parish employees and two council members recalled Bagala’s conversations with Cantrelle and council members, Cantrelle told Morvant he did not direct Bagala to talk about raises when making the calls, instead only seeking a yes or no on the insurance plan, according to the opinion. 

Cantrelle eventually relented and put the parish’s current plan up for renewal, albeit with employees electing to pay higher premiums to keep their plan, at the Nov. 22 council meeting, which the council approved. Sposito said she wants the parish to move on from this challenging situation.  

“I’m just hoping to put this behind us. As you can imagine, it’s been a very difficult time,” Sposito said via email. 

Councilman Jerry Jones, who presented the three measures seeking Morvant’s opinions on the drug screen and raises, said Cantrelle never should have been gambling with employees’ health insurance. He said Cantrelle must “start from scratch” to earn the parish employees’ trust again. 

“Employee morale is so low around here right now. The only way I think Jimmy can bounce back and get the employees’ confidence is start treating people the right way,” Jones said.