Randolph, Lasseigne spar over Lafourche budget, emergency plan

The two candidates for Lafourche Parish president, the current Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph and Lafourche Parish Council Chairman Tommy Lasseigne, sparred last week in a debate hosted by the Thibodax Chamber of Commerce.

Lasseigne promoted a zero-based budget for the parish. Under a zero-based budget, all the agencies in the parish would have to justify the funds they need.

The agencies would no longer be able to ask for a new budget based solely on last year’s numbers.

“That’s not how it should work,” said Lasseigne. “Justify the fuel, the equipment and the manpower. Justify everything. Don’t just say, ‘We always did it. We always did it.’ I don’t care if we always did it. We’ve always did a lot of things and some of them aren’t correct.”

Randolph said when she took office a budget had not been passed in three years.

She and her administration sat down with a couple of outside parties to take a hard look at the budget and found some of the dedicated funds had excess money.

Realizing this, she said they took to the voters whether or not they could use the excess funds for other projects.

“The voters agreed and now we’ve actually been able to provide senior citizens and recreation districts and the animal shelter a lot more funding without having to go back to the people and ask for additional funds,” said Randolph.

As far as rewriting the parish charter, Lasseigne thinks the charter’s drafters did a good job, but he would like to reconvene the charter commission to address certain issues and possibly make some amendments.

The most pressing, perhaps, is the fact parish councilmen are prohibited from speaking to parish employees and contractors.

He would like to see this changed, but said only the people can vote for the change.

“Hopefully if I am parish president, I can generate the leadership skills necessary to get it to go to the people,” said Lasseigne. “If the councilmen are out there and they can only talk to a small list of people, I disagree with that.”

Randolph’s concerns about rewriting the charter revolve around the decentralizing of parish government and a shift back to the old police jury system.

“We need to adhere to the charter, the strictest letter of the charter, which is what the people of this parish voted upon,” said Randolph.

And if re-elected, Randolph said she will continue to focus on drainage.

“Drainage is the most important issue to the people of Lafourche,” said Randolph.

She said not only can hurricanes cause flooding in the parish, but rainfall can as well.

She plans to appeal to the state and federal governments for additional money for pump stations, auxiliary functions and levees.

Lasseigne believes the parish needs a master drainage plan.

“I’ll agree with her (Randolph) drainage is the highest priority, however, we don’t have a prioritized list,” he said. “Anybody can get water from A to B. I can tell you that right now. But it is to have a master plan where you get it from here to here and it’s going out efficiently.”

The plan would oversee drainage projects to make sure the water flow is directed in a methodical way across the parish. And the plan would seek to better prioritize projects.

He said the parish has canals that have not been re-dug in 40 to 50 years, while new canals are dug without being part of a larger drainage plan or prioritization.

Lasseigne would also like to see the parish work toward building up a larger contingency fund for emergencies and develop a better master plan for handling emergencies.

“Our plan is not adequate and was prepared with little input from critical government units,” said Lasseigne.

He would like the fund to be $2 million or more or at least five to 10 percent of the budget.

And he believes the excess funds the parish had this past year should have been used to build up the contingency fund.

“We need to have a contingency fund that is strictly dedicated to an emergency,” said Lasseigne.

Randolph operates under a different philosophy.

“Our biggest question has always been, do you want us to save the money for a rainy day or do you want us to prepare for a rainy day by spending the money and building the projects and digging the ditches and making it work,” said Randolph.

But she said she has always made sure the parish has maintained at least $1 million for its contingency fund.

On the issue of the number of boards and commissions in the parish Lasseigne explained the parish council has made a concerted effort to reduce the number of boards and commissions by combining them.

And the council has ordered strict audit reports, met with them and even appointed members to vacant boards.

Randolph takes a more cautious approach, believing each board should be carefully studied before a decision to abolish it is made.

“Boards and commissions have a valuable place in local government,” said Randolph.

She entertained the idea of creating master boards to oversee them, however.

The two candidates made brief closing statements.

“We need a leader, not a cheerleader,” said Lasseigne. “We need somebody that gets out there and works.”

The parish council chairman suggested voters pick him to run their $50 million organization [the parish] because of his qualifications and educational background.

And Randolph simply asked voters to look at the quality of their lives now compared to what it was four years ago, before she took office.

“If you live in Lafourche, I think you’ve felt better about living in Lafourche the last four years, because of the leadership we’ve provided you,” Randolph said.

The candidates for parish president debated at the forum at the Jean Lafitte Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center.

The audience was invited to submit questions through the moderator to the candidates.

Thibodaux Chamber of Commerce Chairman Matthew Block moderated the event.