Police Jury will vote on budget Monday

The Vermilion Parish Police Jury made a huge step in its journey of approving the 2010 budget Thursday night.
With sales tax and oil royalty revenue falling over the past year, and expectations of it not rising in the near future, the Jury is faced with the task of finding cuts in the $42 million proposed budget.

The proposed budget is $2.8 million more than what the Police Jury expects to take in for the 2010 fiscal year.
Thursday night, the Finance committee was able to knock that $2.8 million dollar excess down to about $800,000.
Whatever cost is over-budgeted will have to come out of the Parish savings, something the Jury does not wish to dip very heavily into.

“We are just trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s money,” Police Juror Nathan Granger (District 3) said after the meeting. “We are being real conservative in the numbers of how much tax we expect to collect, and we actually inflate the expenses a little bit.”

Granger also said he felt some cost cutting measures the Jury plans on working out with different department supervisors during the year will also save the Parish money.

“Next year, we might be able to implement some of the measures we are cutting,” Granger said. “We are just erring on the side of safety and trying to stop the bleeding.”

The Jury will hold a special meeting Monday night to approve or reject the cuts they made Thursday night to the proposed budget. If accepted, iRt will then go on to the full Jury for approval.

The Jury put many Parish operations on hold until next year in order to reduce the proposed budget.
Much of the saving came from cutting planned new equipment purchases from the Public Works Department.

The Jury also decided to opt out of the usual 3 percent cost-of-living raise for all Parish employees, saving the Parish about $180,000. They also decided to institute a hiring freeze.