Lafourche OK’s $50M budget

The Lafourche Parish Council adopted its 2011 Operations and Capital Budgets last Tuesday night after they restructured projected income to facilitate transfers from the general fund to capital projects.

The budget, scheduled for $50 million in expenditures, underwent changes as the councilmen moved money around to finance equipment for the Department of Public Works.

Through budget amendments, $1.1 million was transferred to the capital projects fund, but before the budget could be enacted, the council had to propose three additional amendments to increase revenue projections to prevent the adoption of a deficit budget.

Parish President Charlotte Randolph asked the council to take a conservative approach and not amend an already balanced budget. Instead, she suggested the council wait until its first meeting in 2011, when it could make the transfers through supplemental appropriation.

“We discussed that we would feel more comfortable with many of these requests coming after January,” Randolph said to the council. “Even doing so now would not allow the purchase of this equipment until January.”

Randolph went on to say she expected more revenue than was written into the projected budget but preferred to see it materialize before dedicating funds.

District 7 Councilman Phillip Gouaux, who introduced seven of the amendments, said he wanted to ensure the money would be available for the Department of Public Works, which saw a 51 percent cut from its 2010 projected budget.

“Public works is the most important part of maintenance in this parish,” he said. “If we put this [transfer] as ‘maybe,’ I can’t be a part of it.”

The administration asked Parish Auditor David Stagni to speak to the council about the importance of avoiding a deficit budget. Stangi did not make a recommendation but did warn of the potential consequences.

“I haven’t analyzed your budget, but if [the amendments] exceed the [general] fund balance, you are in violation of state law,” he said. “If it does not exceed the [general] fund balance, you are not. It’s a mathematical determination.”

Amendments 1 and 2 dedicated $951,000 to be spent on a culvert cleaner, three tree clippers, two backhoes, five grass cut tractors, two single-axle dump trucks, one tandem dump truck, a 100 gallon spray rig, two four wheelers with spray equipment, a mud boat with trailer and injection spray and a welding machine.

Amendment 3 called for $190,000 to be set aside to for the purpose of bringing the parish’s pump stations to Occupational Health and Safety Administration guidelines. The 2011 budget already set aside $60,000 for this project.

Amendment 6 provided $30,000 for financing the Wald Bridge project.

Amendments 1, 2, 3 and 6 passed unanimously.

Amendment 5, sponsored by Louis Richard, dedicated $10,000 to support the Commission for Women, which received no funds in the original proposed budget. It passed 7-2, with Gouaux and Lindell Toups dissenting.

Richard also sponsored Amendment 7, which added the $75,000 salary for Frank Morris, the inaugural director of plans and permits. It passed 8-1, with Rodney Doucet opposed.

Amendment 4, which was scheduled to dedicate $350,000 to “repair private property that was damaged by Parish Public Works operations,” was pulled by Gouaux after it was revealed by Finance Director Ryan Friedlander that $250,000 was already budgeted for this reason.

The six amendments that passed left the council with an unbalanced budget. In response, members of the Finance Department developed three more amendments, which increased revenue projections by $464,606 and transferred money from the royalty fund to the general fund.

Gouaux presented the administration’s recommended amendments.

The balance-geared changes were threefold in bolstering the general fund to offset the cost of previously passed amendments: decreasing the anticipated decline in ad valorem revenue from 18 percent to 8 percent n which added $164,606.11 to the general fund, the transfer of $719,566 from the royalty fund to the general fund, and the increase of projected 2011 Royalty Revenue from $2.8 million to $3.1 million.