Committee sends budget to police jury; includes raises for all employees

CROWLEY - Pay cuts and belt tightening appears to have paid off for the Acadia Parish Police Jury.
When the Finance Committee presents its 2018 budget to the full jury later this year, it will include a 5 percent across-the-board pay increase for all parish employees.
In addition, the 10 percent pay reduction implemented last year for all employees paid out of the General Fund will be cancelled.
But there’s still a cloud with this silver lining.
Anticipated revenues for the parish General Fund — the fund from which the vast majority of the day-to-day operational expenses are drawn — are nearly $200,000 short of anticipated expenses for that fund.
“We’ve seen about a $200,000 decrease in our 1-cent sales tax revenue this year and we expect that continue,” said Peggy Romero, parish budget director. “Also, the state tax collections are still down, therefore we budgeted $500,000 in Severance Tax whereas, in 2016 we budgeted $950,000, but only received $400,000.
“We’ve only received $500,000 for 2017 to date. which reflects a slight increase.”
Romero also said that the 2018 budget does not include anything for the USDA Building Rent, which reflects a $120,000 decrease in revenues.
State offices moved out of the building following the August flood and have not moved back in yet. The jury has been informed that those offices will not rent space in that building after Dec.31, 2018, because it is in a flood zone.
On the plus side of the coin, Romero said there has been a slight increase in the parish ad valorem tax collections for 2018 and the USDA Bond of $80,000 a year has been paid out, reducing the General Fund expense by that amount.
Also, she added, District Attorney Keith Stutes has agreed to reimburse the parish $184,323 in insurance premiums for his staff.
Revenues are expected to total $7,014,718 for the year while expenses are projected to come in at $7,199,880, leaving a deficit of $185,162.
The jury will use $185,500 in prior year funds to cover the deficit which will, on paper, leave a yearend fund balance of $338.
“That’s a lot better that what we were facing last year with a deficit of about $3 million,”