Lafourche rec dept. remains leaderless

Lafourche Parish is without a Parks and Recreation director, and it may be for the rest of the year.

The Parish Council voted 7-2 against a resolution that would ratify Ron Alcorn as the head of the department, with Councilmen Jerry Jones, 1st District, and Michael Delatte, 2nd District, in favor of Alcorn’s appointment.

The lopsided result was based on politics, Jones said after the meeting. He said he wasn’t surprised by the turnout, considering 2011 is an election year, and suspected his fellow councilmen of conspiring over the telephone.

When asked to elaborate, Jones said the fact that Alcorn worked as a department head for former Thibodaux Mayor Charles Caillouet hurt his case with the councilmen “down the bayou.”

Councilman Daniel Lorraine said he was hard-pressed to ratify Alcorn because he wasn’t retained by the city’s new administration.

Current Thibodaux Mayor Tommy Eschete, who retained six people from the previous administration, said Alcorn did not apply to keep his job and neither he nor Alcorn initiated communication.

“It meant a lot to me if somebody was coming to me saying that they were interested, simply because that meant that the politics of the world didn’t matter to them at the time,” the mayor said. “They just really would like to continue their job, and I thought that illustrated a lot from those individuals that did contact me. At that point and time, it showed me a lot that it wasn’t about who they worked for, they just wanted to stay in the position. If I didn’t hear from them, I had to assume they weren’t interested.”

Eschete said he didn’t know if it would have changed anything had Alcorn called.

Before the council voted on the resolution, an ordinance aimed at setting the department head’s salary failed. The ordinance called for 80 hours over a two-week period and an annual salary of $54,159.80, an hourly rate at $25.90.

Several councilmen expressed concern that an incoming department head would get a raise over his predecessor.

Jones amended the resolution that would appoint Alcorn to set his bi-weekly workload at 70 hours and annual salary at $42,660.45, an hourly rate of $23.35, which is identical to what recently resigned Parks and Recreation Director Greg Sanamo earned.

Phillip Gouaux, District 7, listed a myriad of reasons for voting against the appointment. Gouaux said after the resolution failed that he would have felt differently if Alcorn had made the lower hourly rate at 80 hours. “They are hired to do a job and they should make sure they do it.”

Once the meeting ended, however, Gouaux hardened his stance and said the parish should save the salary and finish 2011 without a Parks and Recreation director. Appointing one now, with the parish president’s seat up for grabs, could be meaningless by next year, he said.

Gouaux said that unless the parish’s seven recreation districts are consolidated, he doesn’t see the need for a department head and suggested Jennifer Dufrene, the current administrative assistant, could maintain the department in its current form.

Dufrene, who has worked in the department for 10 years, said she feels she could handle the required duties if the department remains in its current configuration, but not indefinitely.

“In the future, I think there is [a need for a department head],” Dufrene said. “I don’t have authority to make some decisions and doing certain things. I need that supervisor for authority and decision-making.”

Each of the seven recreation districts has its own director, who reports to the department head. The department head collaborates with the directors and the administration, oversees construction projects and gives periodical updates on the department’s status at council meetings.

Brennan Matherne, LPG public information officer, said the administration is “considering their options at this time for the department head position” and pointed out the Civil Service system advertisement for a recreation manager.

The nature of the job for the recreation manager is described as “performs a variety of complex professional and administrative work in planning, developing, scheduling, implementing and managing the year-round, parish wide recreation program,” and lists a salary range of $14.35 – $26.96 per hour. It was posted Thursday, Feb. 10.

Because the position is not an official department head, the applicant that best fits the qualifications would need to be ratified by the Civil Service Board.

Of the seven recreation districts, four receive money for construction and maintenance from property tax millages, all of which were voted on by the public – Bayou Blue, Gheens, Lockport and Raceland. The amount levied ranges from 2.48 mills in Lockport to 9.98 mills in Gheens.

There is also a parish-wide recreational millage of 1.65 mills.

The funds from the parish-wide millage are distributed through a process that examines “other income sources, past budgeted amounts, activities offered, number of children participating in said activities, facility conditions and other associated needs of each recreation district,” Finance Director Ryan Friedlander said via Matherne.

Years ago, LPG distributed the parish-wide funds based on a formula, which is not a part of the tax call, nor is it associated with any law.