Early voting under way as Sheriff’s proposed tax draws debate

Terrebonne Parish voters are casting early ballots this week for a tax proposal floated by Sheriff Jerry Larpenter, a half-cent sales tax that he says will pay for school resource officers throughout the parish and also shore up a budget that has spiraled downward for at least three years.

Election Day is Nov. 6, when voters will give a final decision on the tax, choose an appeals court judge, elect school board members and decide on constitutional amendments.

Larpenter is a largely popular sheriff first elected in 1985, who remained in office until 2007, and then returned to the post in 2011. He will be on the ballot for re-election next year. But increasingly, the proposed tax facing voters now is taking the shape on an early referendum on the sheriff’s credibility and the public’s overall trust.

The tax is expected to generate an estimated $10.6 million in its first year if approved. The ballot item states the money will be dedicated and used “for the purpose of providing deputy sheriffs in schools, ancillary equipment for deputy sheriffs, and salaries and benefits of law enforcement.”

Several sheriffs in Louisiana, Larpenter included, seized on the potential for added revenue when a “temporary” tax of 1 percent was partially scuttled by the legislature earlier this year, leaving a tax of .49 cents statewide. Adding ½ percent to that scheme, Larpenter reasons, means that consumers will see no appreciable difference in the cost of goods and services. Of greater importance, he said, is the money will provide services directly within Terrebonne, not scattered statewide as with the former tax.

“A yes vote on the half-cent sales tax on November 6th means a trained law enforcement officer will be placed at every school in Terrebonne Parish, public and private,” Larpenter maintains, labeling the tax as a “Terrebonne Safety Initiative.”

Critics note, however, that the school resource officer cost projected by Larpenter only takes into account half of the estimated annual sales tax take. The other half, they say, will go instead to buffering a budget that shows consistent losses and continued deficit spending. Taxpayers, they maintain, should not have to foot the bill for what they see as fiscal mismanagement and lack of belt-tightening. And if, as the most current budget projections show, Larpenter has reined in his budget, then they question why the tax should be levied to begin with.

In 2017, the Sheriff’s Office accounting revenue over expenditures stood at a deficit of more than $5 million. In 2016 the deficit was at nearly $3.5 million. The year before, expenditures trumped revenues by nearly $1.5 million. Revenues exceeded expenditures last in 2014, by $1,191,204.

Based on 2017 revenues, the tax would provide a 40 percent budget increase.

When questioned about the budgeting issues, Larpenter acknowledges that he is in deficit, but he flatly denies that it is caused by improper business decisions. For nearly two years he has had meetings with his staff during which he explained why they would not receive raises, as well as the potential of stopping popular programs like inmate repair and refurbishing of schools, non-profit headquarters and public infrastructure. Larpenter said he has continued those programs because the public desires and supports them.

To keep services at the level he wishes, he has borrowed $4 million over a five-year period, a move he said he does not like making. Due to the types of loans, the Sheriff is required to pay them back within a year.

“I have lost $5 million trying to get back to where we were and I don’t see the economy getting better,” he said. If the economy does improve, Larpenter said, it is possible that “someone” could take another look at the continued need for the tax.

But some voters don’t place a lot of hope in that, or in the concept of adding another tax to make up for the Sheriff’s budget woes. Several flat out question that qualified law enforcement officers will be placed in the schools. Among them is Joseph Malbrough of Houma.

“No more damn taxes,” he wrote in a Facebook post verified as his by The Times. “We pay enough already. There is no way you are going to convince me that a seasoned law enforcement officer will be placed in every school. if the school wants them in the schools let them pay for them. We in this parish pay way too many taxes, already one of the highest in the state.”

Tax fatigue is evident during interviews of voters and potential voters, who recall giving okays to extra taxes meant for teacher raises and the levee system that protects Terrebonne Parish. Several have stated that the school sales tax also helped fund a raise for Superintendent Philip Martin, something they had not counted on.

However, a raise for Martin and any proposed raises for school board members did not come from the sales tax. Nonetheless, some voters maintain that it did.

Martin himself supports Larpenter’s proposal, as does the Terrebonne Parish School Board. The School District currently pays for the resource officers it uses from both the Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office and the Houma Police Department, eight in all.

“It’s such a scary proposition to not have resource officers and Sheriff Larpenter feels the same way,” said Martin. “He has proposed a resource officer in every school public and private, including the elementary schools.”

The tax, Martin acknowledged, will return payment of school resource officers to the Sheriff’s budget, not the schools. Up until recently Larpenter’s budget paid for resource officers but he halted the practice because of the budget issues. Martin was asked if he feels the proposed use of the tax will be adhered to.

“The proposal is specifically worded,” Martin said. “He can’t change it if he wanted to once the voters have voted. I am not only comfortable with it, I am campaigning for it. Schools are becoming targets nationwide. And having so many resource officers has so many fringe benefits. Kids are able to associate with law enforcement officers in a healthy, positive environment.”

Some of Larpenter’s critics have said he cannot legally place resource officers in private schools, making his promise hollow. But the Sheriff’s Office maintains that they can legally do so, in the same way that school bus transportation is required to be provided for private schools. State law, Larpenter notes, leaves no question on the matter.

Louisiana R.S. 17:416.19 provides requirements for school resource officers and includes a provision that any public or private school may enter into an agreement with a law enforcement agency for that purpose.

Asked why his financials continues to be at deficit – even with the elimination of resource officers from his budget – Larpenter provided detailed numbers.

Revenues reached a high for the Sheriff’s Office in 2014, at $29,898,903.00, according to records provided by Larpenter. They declined slightly in 2015, at $29,437,250.00 in 2015. A big difference, according to Larpenter’s numbers, was felt in 2016 when revenues fell to $28,760,964.00. Last year they fell to $26,593,067.00.

The total drop in revenue from 2015 to 2017 was more than $3 million. Among the items disappearing from Larpenter’s revenue stream were healthy reimbursements from the state for Department of Correction inmates held at the Terrebonne jail.

Program expenses, Larpenter said, providing detailed records, rose from more than $28 million in 2014 to more than $32 million in 2017, despite cutbacks.

In his current budget for FY 2018-19, the sheriff’s biggest single expense is deputy salaries, at $9,224, 717, and hospitalization, at $3,815,000.00. Other major items are pensions at $1,957,213.00, prisoner maintenance at $740,000 and fuel, at $480,000.

Two major Sheriff’s Office facilities have been closed down, the women’s jail that was the former juvenile detention center, and the work-release program on Savanne Road. The cost of school resource officers was also shifted to the school system.

To make ends meet in the coming year, Larpenter said, there is no doubt that programs will be cut if he can’t get the tax passed. The jail above the Terrebonne Parish courthouse annex, he said, may be closed. The inmates in his work program — not to be confused with work release — are housed in the annex. But that program, Larpenter said, will also be eliminated.

“This is a service that we don’t have to do,” Larpenter said. “We are not mandated to paint schools and swimming pools or pressure wash the tunnel or the gymnasiums. This is a service we do which is a cost out of our budget and we have been doing that for 30 years.”

The Sheriff also maintains that the inmate work program — utilizing between 70 and 80 low-risk convicts held locally — allows those offenders to learn trades.

“Most of them don’t come back,” Larpenter said. “They paint, weld, do sheetrock and carpenter work, some are mechanics. They are paying their real debt back to society in a program that is voluntary and not forced.”

Larpenter disagrees with forecasts from economists that the local economy is bouncing back and will continue to do so, and says he won’t stake his office’s financial health on those predictions. He has not addressed the rise in ad valorem taxes expected once tax breaks for various businesses along the La. 311 corridor are expired, and is not certain of how they will or won’t affect the ad valorem totals, or his share.

“Not all the economists are saying things will come back,” Larpenter said. “Some are not. Economists are like a weatherman. They get paid whether they are right or wrong. People that work in the oilfield are telling me offshore drilling is not coming back right away. The damage to the oilfield that occurred in the 1980s did not come back until the 1990s. Plus there is fracking all over the country and why would companies drill offshore compared to the lower cost of fracking. The sheriff’s office cannot survive on assumptions and predictions. We have to survive on revenues. Nobody can pay their bills on predictions.”

Nonetheless, Larpenter has maintained, even if financial conditions allow his office to break even or show a greater fund balance, he still won’t be able to raise officer salaries, or provide school resource officer service. The increase of school resource officers he proposes will not be possible either.

His current FY 2018-2019 budget shows a positive fund balance, but Larpenter said that is due to money he has had to borrow, that must be paid back in January. Additionally, he said, projected budgets such as the one those figures came from are not permitted to show a loss.

Noting that many years have passed since Terrebonne Parish endured a major hurricane, Larpenter said that his financials can be undone at any time by one single storm, and that he is uncomfortable not having a financial cushion for that reason alone. Costs for officers will be dearer in the future, he said, because deputies are now tapped as the personnel who will manually close flood gates through the parish in the event of an emergency.

“The parish does not have the money for that itself,” Larpenter said, adding that despite cutting out expenses for the school resource officer program, his office continues to train teachers on how to cope with emergencies on school campuses.

“We train all the teachers,” Larpenter said, maintaining that despite sunnier predictions for the economy, the evils that make preparing for the worst will not likely slacken.

“What is going on in this country is not going to stop,” Larpenter said. “A bad problem with drugs that’s not getting better, copycat shootings and other crimes when something happens somewhere. School shootings and church shootings are on the rise. The public needs to know that we have spoiled more shootings than there have been shootings, us and Lafourche.”

Resources are expended when threats turn up on social media, he said, and are detected in other ways.

“We have stopped people before they ever succeeded,” he said, returning to the base argument he has made for justification of the tax, but which opponents have branded as scare tactics.

A full-color mailing sent last week to Terrebonne residents is graced by a photos of a deputies interacting with children in school settings.

Larpenter says an important component of the resource officer strategy he will employ is the elementary school facet. Children in junior high already have their minds made up about law enforcement and sometimes in very negative ways, Larpenter said

Getting to children at the youngest ages who can identify officers with a positive experience, Larpenter said, is an investment in the future that could have a big payoff in the long run.

Among the platforms for critics calling such claims scare tactics has been Facebook, where a fictitious person named Jerry Farfenter has been posting challenge to Larpenter’s claims. Supporting those comments are individuals who have “friended” the unidentified individual, including some who are seen as potential challengers to Larpenter when he runs for re-election. Other criticisms — although not publicly made — are circulating among some public officials. Those individuals say they won’t go on the record for fear of offending the sheriff.

Larpenter will not respond to the creation of the Facebook page.

“I do not believe a word Jerry Larpenter says,” the poster using the nom de plume Jerry Farfenter posted. “That is why I decided to discuss how Jerry Larpenter cannot possibly provide 50 school resource officers in Terrebonne Parish beginning January 1, 2019. First and foremost the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s office is currently understaffed and incredibly top heavy in my opinion. Everyone is a lieutenant and most have no direct reports and they supervise no one … there would be no one left to patrol the parish.”

More than one Terrebonne Parish council member has questioned why they were subjected to a presentation from Larpenter, seeking their support. They said they do not recall other officials seeking their outright, declared support through resolution as Larpenter is doing.

Some Houma Police Department officials — though not publicly — are wary of Larpenter’s proposal, questioning why only one law enforcement agency’s budget should benefit from the tax.

Larpenter and his supporters note that a proposal was sent to officials, including Parish President Gordon Dove and Police Chief Dana Coleman. Under its provisions, the Sheriff’s Office would pay benefits and other costs for city officers working as school resource officers at local schools.

The proposal, according to Larpenter and others in his department, was never acknowledged and no reply was issued.

Some of the public criticism has been lobbed at a personal level, including discussion of a lawsuit the Sheriff’s Office — as well as Parish President Dove — settled.

Brought by Houma residents Jennifer Anderson and her husband Wayne, a city police officer, the suit alleged civil rights violations because detectives had seized computers and cell phones belonging to the couple. The action was part of an investigation into alleged defamation of insurance broker Tony Alford and posts critical of Larpenter — and other officials like Dove — on an anonymous blog and a Facebook page later determined to have been created by Anderson.

Accusations that Larpenter used bullying tactics against the Andersons were wide-spread, although the settlement included no admissions of wrong-doing by either side.

The inclusion of that case in the current public criticism raises the question of whether and how much Larpenter’s trust from the public slid.

The need for added funding, he says, is a real and present problem that won’t go away without help from the public, no matter their personal opinions regarding his administration.

“In January I will have to pay the $6 million,” Larpenter said. “We budgeted to automobiles we need but have not purchased. If I don’t bring in the money I don’t have it to spend on things. I am already cutting overtime. I can’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mardi Gras.”

The answer will emerge Nov. 6, when Larpenter’s proposal gets a final thumbs up or thumbs down from the voters themselves. •

Jerry Larpenter