Jurors tightening belts as budget hearings begin

The Acadia Parish Police Jury will consider a request for monetary support for The Welcome House, but it took presidential action for that to happen.

After hearing of funding cuts and shortfalls in various departments Tuesday night, the Finance Committee refused to recommend that the full jury consider a request from the Community Outreach Corporation to allocated funding annually to the homeless shelter.

“I understand your concerns, but my concern is that we’ve already had to cut services and equipment,” committee member Robert Guidry told Clay LeJeune and Joe Freeland. “There are a number of state and federal programs out there. We just can’t afford it.”

LeJeune and Freeland were representing the Community Outreach Corp., organized in 2006 by the Rotary Club of Crowley when that organization under took a project to rebuild The Welcome House, a shelter for homeless men, women and families located north of Crowley near Maxie.

LeJeune explained that the corporation raised over $750,000 in cash and over $400,00 of in-kind donations to fund the project.

Rotarians donated more than 10,000 hours, Welcome House clients over 10,000 hours, area church work teams over 6,000 hours and two work teams from Prairie Grove, Arkansas, over 5,000 hours of work time in the actual construction.

The facility is owned by the corporation, which leases it to The Welcome House for $1 per year.

The corporation requested that the police jury “identify annually $100,000 from existing revenue sources, beginning in the 2015 budget year, for the long-term maintenance and support of the (corporation’s) homeless shelter in Acadia Parish.”

LeJeune told the committee that the rotary Club has paid off the mortgage on the facility through its Dancing With the Stars fundraisers and other projects, but explained, “It’s now six years old and is needing some maintenance.”

Rotarians, he added, now want to expand their projects to other areas.

“We didn’t want to come here and ask you to pay off our loan. We did that,” he said. “Now we realize that we can’t continue to maintain” the entire facility.

LeJeune added that, should the facility ultimately fail, “you’ll be dealing with these people one way or the other,” pointing out that rising the cost of incarceration is responsible in a large way for the belt-tightening actions being recommended by the committee.

But Guidry was adamant.

“If we do this, are we then obligated to help the soup kitchen here in town or every church organization that comes in there and asks for help?” he asked. “It could go on and on.”

“But The Welcome House is not a religious organization,” Freeland pointed out. “And it is not located in Crowley, or in Rayne, or in Church Point — it’s in the parish and is a parishwide service.”

Juror Alton “Al” Stevenson, not a member of the Finance Committee, said he felt that the jury should discuss allocating some money to the corporation with the possibility of ultimately increasing that allocation annually until it reaches the requested $100,000.

He suggested that the committee send it to the full jury for discussion

But Julie Borill, who chairs the Finance Commitee, noting Guidry’s stance and the fact that only two members of the committee were present, said it would be pointless for her to move such since her motion obviously die for lack of a second.

Jimmie Pellerin, the third member of the committee, arrived later in the evening.

That’s when David Savoie, jury president and ex officio member of all committees, said he would have the issue placed on the agenda for the Nov. 12 meeting and invited LeJeune and Freeland to return.

Earlier, during budget review, Peggy Romero, budgeting director, outlined some of the recommendations for the 2015 budget, which is scheduled for adoption at the Dec. 9 police jury meeting.

Among those:

• The Economic Development line item budget has been reduced from $100,000 to $25,000 to free up funding for inmates.

Romero explained that additional cost for parish inmates is unpredictable because of overcrowding and inmates being transferred to Avoyelles Parish.

She said the increase in food allowance went from $3.50 a day to $24 a day, which averages about $10,000 a month for 15 inmates.

• $100,000 was budgetd for the courthouse third and fourth floor renovation, but that was reduced to $75,000, which Romero said would allow for the 15th Judicial District’s request to renovate the new judge’s office and possible purchase new furniture.

“We want to move the other $25,000 to another capital iprovement line item to purchase the recording equipment, PA and speaker system in courtroom A or B and in the fourth-floor courtroom as requested by the District,” Romero said.

• No salary increases.

Borill asked if Romero and staff could present cost projections for 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent and 5 percent raises for “all full-time parish employees.”

• A request to purchase three new dump trucks for the Road Maintenance Department was put on hold.