Parish to adopt 2008 budget
BY WILLIAM JOHNSON

• WJOHNSON@DAILYWORLD.COM • MAY 27, 2008

The Daily World

The St. Landry Parish Council will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday to amend the parish's 2007 budget and adopt a 2008 operating budget.
The budget, which should have been adopted last year to take effect this past January, was delayed because of the election last fall of eight new members to the 13-member parish council.
Parish President Don Menard, who proposes the budget that must then be adopted by the council, said he did not feel it was fair to the new council members to operate with a budget they had not approved.
He said the delay has caused no problems. The Home Rule Charter, which governs the parish, calls for the parish to operate on the previous year's budget if a new one is not adopted. The budget Menard is proposing now is almost identical to the budget that was passed for 2007.
Work on a 2009 budget is expected to begin soon, with plans calling for it to be put before the council for discussion in September.
While the proposed 2008 budget totals $13,234,330, about half of that total is what Menard calls "pass-through" money - funds over which the parish has no real control.
The roughly $6 million in pass-through funds must be spent on mandated expenses such as operating the parish's health care units, operation of the six independent road districts over which the parish has responsibility and funding for the parish's jail and court system.
These pass-through funds also pay part of the cost of operating numerous parish agencies, such as the district attorney's office, the clerk of court's office, the assessor's office, the parish airport, veterans affair's office and so on.
Of the remaining money, the largest single line item - totaling just over $3 million - is for road maintenance.
Just under $2 million of that road money comes from the parish's share of gaming profits from Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino. The rest comes primarily from the parish transportation fund - the parish's share of state gasoline sales taxes. In 2007, those gasoline taxes brought in $890,551.
When the pass-through dollars and the road money are removed, the parish general fund is left with about $4 million to meet all other expenses.
From the general fund, the largest single expense is operation of the public works department, which cost $1.6 million in 2007. This total went primarily for materials - limestone for gravel roads, equipment repairs, gasoline, tires and so on.
The next largest expense is $1.4 million for payroll, with just under $1 million in salaries and the rest for insurance and benefits.
While the general fund revenue - derived primarily from property taxes - amounted to $4.4 million in the 2007, Menard's 2008 budget calls for only $3.7 million in revenue this year.
Menard said he is not expecting revenue to actually decrease, but is instead budgeting conservatively to allow for unforeseen developments.