Lafourche: 1/3rd of BP’s $1M spent on cleanup

Since the BP Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion April 20, Lafourche Parish Government employees have been seeing double the trouble.

Add the parish’s oil spill response efforts to the daily problems any local government faces, and suddenly there are a boatload of expenses the parish didn’t budget for.

For that reason, BP gave the Lafourche Parish Government a $1 million check May 13 to financially combat the oil spill.

Parish Finance Director Ryan Friedlander released the figures on how Lafourche has been spending the money at last week’s parish council meeting.

As of July 1, the parish spent $319,234 of the $1 million fund. Finances for the month of July were not available as of press time.

Salaries and wages for BP related activities cost the parish $171,545.

“Anybody who’s working on BP related activities, 100 percent of their wages is currently being deducted from that million dollar balance,” Friedlander said.

Friedlander’s most recent time sheet showed 15 of the more than 100 parish government employees working the oil spill.

“If someone is working in Fourchon, then someone has to pick up their duties,” said Friedlander.

About 20.7 percent of the salaries and wages, or $35,510, has been deducted from the $1 million fund for employee benefits.

“My predecessor [Joel Doty] came up with a certain percentage of the wages earned, and that’s where we get the benefits from,” said Friedlander. “It’s calculated on the time they spent [working] on BP [cleanup].”

The parish also deducted $63,514 for operating services including repair and maintenance of equipment and mileage and rental costs for parish vehicles, he said.

Rounding out the report, the parish spent $98 on fees, permits and licenses, as well as $319,234 on materials for structures.

After roughly six weeks with access to BP’s $1 million fund, the parish spent close to one-third and had $680,766 remaining.

But Friedlander noted costs initially incurred are continuing to decrease as more and more time passes since the flow of the deepwater rig has been curbed.

“Total spending has gone down since late May,” said Friedlander.

When the parish spends three-fourths of BP’s $1 million dollar check, it will apply for additional funding.

Given the projected decrease in sales tax revenue for the year, Friedlander expressed concern the parish budget could experience a shortfall.

“Some estimated that [the sales tax collection decrease] is getting as high as 25 percent, some are as high as 40 [percent]. … I’m thinking around 30 to 35 percent,” said Friedlander. “We already anticipated 2010 was going to be a lean year, but if we suffer those types of setbacks with different industries getting affected, it’s going to be tough to maintain even the lean budget for this year.”

Friedlander attributes the loss in tax revenue to the lack of fishing and commerce, but he fears the deepwater drilling moratorium may force many businesses to move out of the parish and further diminish the collection of property taxes.

After meeting with officials from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office two weeks ago, Friedlander said he was assured that the parish can file a claim through BP and attempt to regain revenue from lost taxes so parish public services are not affected.

“Regardless of the sales tax revenue, we still need to have drainage and things like that. Mother Nature isn’t going to be forgiving,” Friedlander said.