Terrebonne hikes maximum salary for executives

The Terrebonne Parish Council has agreed to raise the maximum salaries for executive positions within the consolidated government by $10,000.

The ordinance will affect 13 Terrebonne Parish employees, with their new maximum salaries from about $107,000 to about $143,000. While these employees did not earn any raise, the midpoints for their salary ranges also increased.

Parish President Michel Claudet put the ordinance on last Wednesday’s council agenda. He stressed that nobody has received a raise, but that the ordinance gives Parish President-elect Gordon Dove more flexibility in making hires.

“It was important to get it done before so the new parish president

73-year-old notary and Navy veteran who spent a lifetime helping to rehabilitate felony offenders.

A Lafayette grand jury declined to indict Billiot, who was facing a first-degree murder charge. But prosecutors and police have told members of the victim’s family that they still see Billiot as a person of interest in connection with that crime, and note the grand jury outcome does not preclude further action against him, if they are able to develop evidence.

But even though Billiot is not being re-sought for the murder at this point, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said he should still be considered a risk while at large, based on his overall history and the gravity of the local charges he does face.

“I would consider him armed and dangerous,” Larpenter said. “If he is a suspect in a homicide and there they didn’t have enough evidence for the grand jury, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it. It doesn’t mean he did do it. Just the aggravated burglary is a dangerous felony and he could get 25 to 30 years for that.”

The hunt for Billiot began after a deputy on road patrol noticed him driving a car on Grand Caillou Road Tuesday afternoon. Knowing there was an active warrant for Billiot, the deputy attempted to pull the car over. Billiot led him – and other deputies who joined – on a chase that at one point reached 100 mph. Billiot bailed out of the car leaving a female companion and her child in it; he ran into a wooded, swampy area.

“We looked as hard as we could but our dogs couldn’t track him,” Larpenter said. “A Coast Guard helicopter assisted but we couldn’t find him. I was born and raised around swamps and I guarantee if I wanted to hide in those swamps, you couldn’t find me.”

The family of the murder victim in the Lafayette case has recently renewed their plea to authorities for an aggressive investigation, and they are hoping that anyone Billiot – or anyone else involved – may have confided to will come forward.

“He was always the prime suspect, and the detective who now has the case told us he is still a suspect,” said Ron Robicheaux, who is married to one of Touchet’s nieces.

The family still maintains a Facebook page called Justice for Sidney Touchet.

His bound body was found inside his burning home, and a Lafayette police spokesman, Cpl. Paul Mouton, said it appeared that Touchet died prior to the house erupting into flame.

Terrebonne authorities are well aware of Billiot’s background, and of his connection to the Touchet case.

The victim’s Mustang automobile was located in Terrebonne Parish days after the murder and authorities confirmed that Billiot had driven it. Items in the car believed to have belonged to Touchet – details of which were not made public – were viewed as evidence supporting the murder charge.

Already wanted in Terrebonne for a domestic violence charge and other crimes, Billiot was handed over to Lafayette and held in lieu of a $5 million bond, remaining jailed until his release.

“We do not know if our uncle knew him,” a Touchet family member said of Billiot. She, like some other family members, asked not to be identified by name because of concerns that their safety could be jeopardized. “He had (Touchet’s) vehicle and his belongings and he had to see him that same day. Do I think he did it? I can’t say that he did. Do I think he had something to do with it? He could have just been an associate. I pray to God that he or whoever did this has opened up to somebody and confessed.”

The home invasion, according to Det. Capt. Dawn Foret of the TPSO, involves an allegation that Billiot broke into the home of an ex-girlfriend with whom he fathered a child. Only the woman’s current boyfriend was home, and he was allegedly assaulted by Billiot, who left with items that belonged to the child.

Billiot’s family members and known associates have already been interviewed by Terrebonne investigators, and say they don’t know his whereabouts.

But anyone who might be helping him hide out, Larpenter warned, will face severe consequences.

“They would be charged, they will be charged, with aiding and abetting,” the sheriff said. “Everybody in the family knows we are looking for him, and it’s only a matter of time before we find him. He will turn up.”

has some latitude to fill vacating parish positions,” Claudet said.

However, some council members did not agree with approving the raise now. The vote was 5-2 in favor, with Arlanda Williams and Beryl Amedee absent from the meeting. Councilmen Danny Babin and Russell Hornsby both voted against raising the maximum pay.

Hornsby said that with the current weak economy, the parish should not be proposing such ordinances.

“It’s the timing that is not right on this. I would have probably voted for this if oil was at $100 a barrel, the economy was booming like it had been the three years previous to this year. I would have had no problem with that,” Hornsby said.

Babin echoed Hornsby’s statements that he would have probably voted in favor of it had the economy been in better shape. He stressed that the parish must spend taxpayer dollars wisely, particularly in these lean times.

“It’s taxpayer dollars; your dollars and my dollars. Sometimes does that make it easier to spend? Well, yeah, but we have a fiduciary responsibility to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar. I just think that this is a poor time,” Babin said.

Both councilmen expressed skepticism that passing this ordinance would not result in a raise for an incoming executive for the parish.

“Why are they asking for an increase in salary ranges if in the back of their mind they’re not intending on bumping the salary? That doesn’t make any sense,” Hornsby said.

Babin tried to delay the vote and put it to a public hearing for the first meeting of the new parish government in January. However, the council voted down his efforts.

“I think something as important as this should be voted on by the new council, not this outgoing council,” Babin said.

At the council meeting, Claudet noted that a lot of executive positions in Terrebonne have salaries that were not competitive with industry standards.

“When I came in for my initial term, they had so many of the directors that were so far below what the private industry was at that particular time. We needed to do certain things,” he said.

“Right now in private business, in the private sector, people are cutting jobs by the thousands. Businesses are having to close their doors, and my thinking is that you should be able to find somebody that could work for the present salary ranges,” Hornsby said.

Claudet said helping attract the best candidates to replace key staff was vital.

“There will be a number

Elwood Billiot

Terrebonne hikes maximum salary for executives