Jesse Bellard Talks Jail & Budget Shortfalls

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Paris Circuit. I'm Stuart Ammon. In the studio with me is David Riley. And today we have a special guest, Jesse Bellard, in the house. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. How's everything, sir? [00:00:10] Speaker A: It's going good, man. Jesse, thank you so much for coming and doing this. I really appreciate that. I know you're a busy guy, and we'll just jump right into it. So you've been parish president serving for five years. Six years. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Six years. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Six years. And that's a four year term, Right? [00:00:24] Speaker B: Correct. [00:00:25] Speaker A: So four year term. So we got two years until whatever the next election is or elections next year. Oh, next year. [00:00:31] Speaker B: I came in and take a. Take Bill's place. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Halfway through his first year in his first term. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And your specialty before this was in budgets, Right? Like you worked in finance or. [00:00:44] Speaker B: So I started out here in 2004. Whenever Don became president, we went from a police jury to a parish government. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:53] Speaker B: That was January 12, 2004. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:00:56] Speaker B: So. So we walked in the door and started off from scratch and learned basically what needed to be done. As we went along and found out what to do, how to do it, and kind of get away from that old jury system. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the old police jury system. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah. That didn't work too good. [00:01:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So we have a. It's a parish charter now, correct? [00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah, Home rule charter. [00:01:16] Speaker A: Okay. Home rule charter. And that's been in place since 2004, correct. [00:01:20] Speaker B: January 12, 2004. [00:01:22] Speaker A: So what was the big reason to pivot off of police jury to home rule charter? [00:01:27] Speaker B: So the police jury system as it sits in other parishes, and as it said here was you have 13 jurors, each one having their own say so on what to do in their own districts. Okay, so you didn't have one person. [00:01:41] Speaker A: They kind of rule over their own districts. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:01:43] Speaker A: Okay, gotcha. [00:01:44] Speaker B: You didn't have one person running into parish as a whole. [00:01:47] Speaker A: I see. [00:01:47] Speaker B: So nobody saw about the parish. They saw about their districts. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Okay. So that mean each district has, like, its own budget. [00:01:55] Speaker B: Each district had its own budget. If they had a special taxing district, they had that to see about as well. [00:02:00] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So the money that came in was divided up into the districts. So you had X amount of dollars to do whatever you could do. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:09] Speaker B: But the. The police jury system worries about each district. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:02:15] Speaker B: So there's. There was nobody worrying about the parish. [00:02:17] Speaker A: The parish as a whole. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Correct. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Okay. And what. What difference does that make? Help. Help frame that in the sense of how that's better for the parish. Like why is it better for us to have that type of a system? [00:02:29] Speaker B: So my job as parish president is to see about the parish and it includes municipalities, it includes the rural areas. It's everything within the boundaries. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:39] Speaker B: So there's an issue in the parish. It doesn't matter what district is in. [00:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:43] Speaker B: It gets handled accordingly. [00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:45] Speaker B: You know, I don't have to worry about calling that councilman in that district, let them know about this and that. I take care of day to day operations of the parish and somebody's here every day, seen about it day and night, seen about this and making sure that everything is handled. [00:02:59] Speaker A: I'm surprised you want that job. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Sometimes you, sometimes you, you got to think about this and. But whenever I came back as to Paris president, I was called by several council members and said, you don't. Who knows government. So we need you to come in and take Bill's pace. He's, you know, he's gonna be retiring and everything else. [00:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:20] Speaker B: I was working for the state of Louisiana at that time as a brand commission officer, basically working Monday through Thursday. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Working my 40 hours. And I was home for the weekends. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, do what I wanted to do. So I knew when I took this job it wasn't going to be a Monday to Thursday job. [00:03:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:36] Speaker B: But again, I took it knowing that we had a lot of work to do. [00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker B: And I like challenges. And this is a, this is a challenge every single day. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. The. So it's called civil service for a reason, right? [00:03:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean you got. I can tell you right now, I'm the lowest paid parish president in the state of Louisiana. And that's okay because I knew that. I knew the pay coming into it. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Sure. [00:04:03] Speaker B: I knew what the job was going to entail. So there was no surprises, there was no hidden surprises that comes up. So you gotta, you gotta love what you do to come do this. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Sure. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Because if you don't and you come in for the money or anything else, you're in a wrong job. [00:04:20] Speaker A: It ain't going to work out. Yeah. So sum up for me. In Saint Landry Parish, primary role of the parish president is to day to [00:04:29] Speaker B: day operations of government. And that consists of anything within the government. [00:04:33] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have, we worry about the airport, we worry about animal control. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Worry about court enforcement, adjudicated property, jail operations, emergency preparedness, roads. The entire parish of the of Saint Andrea. The roads. That's in the rural areas, outside the municipalities. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:52] Speaker B: And then we do Help the municipalities with theirs whenever they make the request. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:57] Speaker B: And ditching. And then, of course, in this. This time of the year, hurricanes and floods and natural disasters and just everything just kind of pops up in a day. You just handle it. Yesterday we had a major fire in Eunice area that was in the. In Ward 6, which is just east of Eunice, and those kind of things. They make a request from us to go help, you know. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Because you. You have these fire districts that we appoint boards to run. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:28] Speaker B: But ultimately, all of those fire districts or component units of US Paris government, the. [00:05:35] Speaker A: The money comes out of the parish budget. [00:05:37] Speaker B: No, it comes straight. It comes as taxes that's dedicated for those districts. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Oh, I see. [00:05:42] Speaker B: So in the jury days, they created these districts. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:46] Speaker B: So ultimately we are. Yeah. We are responsible for these districts. Even though we have a board there, ultimately it's us. [00:05:53] Speaker A: I understand. [00:05:54] Speaker B: So whenever there's something that goes down, we get called to go and. [00:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:58] Speaker B: And I don't have a problem doing that. I'm a retired firefighter. Not a problem for me. I'd rather go and see what's happening and help as we go. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:06] Speaker B: And then, of course, they make a request. We always try to help. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's generally the burden of leadership. Like, at the end of the day, the buck stops with somebody and it's you. Yeah, yeah. It's. If it doesn't get done out there, it has to get done. Somebody's got to do it somewhere, no matter what. Yeah. That's how it goes. You know, so we have conversations with people a lot about the concepts of leadership, and really, it just means a lot of responsibility and taken on gladly, you know. Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker B: If you don't want it. And a lot of people want to go and they want to have the prestige of being whatever, but prestige, that's nothing compared to the work that you got to put in. If you're doing it the right way. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're doing it for the money or the accolades, that's just not how leadership works. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Not at all. [00:06:52] Speaker A: It's just not how it plays out. Well. So we wanted to talk about two things on today's episode. We want to talk about parish budget, and we want to talk about the ongoing situation with the jail, and then we'll do parish budget later. So help me understand what's going on between St Andrew Parish Government and the St Andrew Parish Sheriff's Office, because there I see articles and things going back and forth between, it looks like the expenses of the jail and how it's trying to be funded correctly. Help us and our listeners understand this. [00:07:25] Speaker B: So laws were put in place in the 1970s, in the 1980s, specifically for jail and inmates and. And how it affects the sheriffs and the jury. Back then, okay. Back then, there was no taxes for the sheriffs. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:42] Speaker B: They only had the advent taxes, which is 4.12, I believe, which is more than what we collect on averm taxes, believe it or not. But they collect 4.12 mills of property tax. [00:07:53] Speaker A: The sheriff's department. [00:07:54] Speaker B: The sheriff's department does. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:55] Speaker B: And they. At that time, that's all they had. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:58] Speaker B: So. [00:07:59] Speaker A: And that's just to run the sheriff's department, right? Yeah. [00:08:01] Speaker B: And so there's no money for inmates in that category. So. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:05] Speaker B: It was all put on. The burden was put on the Paris governments or the police jurors. And. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:10] Speaker B: And they said, this is what you're going to have to be responsible for. And we call that unfunded mandates. The state mandates the parishes to do whatever this is, but we're not giving you no money for it. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Okay. They just say you got to figure it out. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:25] Speaker A: And one of those mandates was a jail. [00:08:27] Speaker B: The jail, the. The inmates. Okay. So, okay, the jail itself, the building, the structure is 100% for Paris government. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:37] Speaker B: There's nothing that can be done with that, except we have a 1mil property tax that funds the jail operations, which brings in about 840 something thousand a year, give or take on a year. [00:08:50] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:51] Speaker B: That takes care of the operations of the jail, the maintenance, also the jailed annex, which is the courtroom right next to it. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that. The one that's on the Delta grand side, Correct. Okay, yeah, I got. [00:09:01] Speaker B: And then the trustee dorm now. So all of that is under that jail maintenance tax. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, About a million dollars a year. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Well. Well, yeah, eight. About 848. 48 never gets. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Let's get precise. Yeah. Okay, got it. [00:09:17] Speaker B: So we got to maintain everything inside that jail. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Structure, plumbing, electrical equipment, all that's just [00:09:24] Speaker B: dated now because it's 1980 something. 1982, I believe it was built. So. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Sure. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Everything's breaking and it costs more money to do it. So that's. That's stuff that we've been. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Milk is $6 a gallon now. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So on top of that, the actual inmate care, this is what people don't understand. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:43] Speaker B: So an inmate gets arrested. Okay. Say OPD brings an inmate in. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:48] Speaker B: OPD brings them in and they. Once they are booked into the parish jail, they are 100% for the Paris government to see about. [00:09:56] Speaker A: Oh, so even medical care, Everything, anything [00:10:00] Speaker B: a person needs, we got to supply it. So if they come in and they need medical care, they need dental, all their hygiene products, everything a person needs to survive out of the jail, we provide it for them inside the jail. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:15] Speaker B: All the bedding, the sheeting, the clothes, every single thing. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:19] Speaker B: So that's mandatory and somebody has to pay for it. Well, we take in 3.78 meals of property tax for that is for general fund. And that's where we're taking the money from to do that with. [00:10:35] Speaker A: Is that general fund specifically for the jail or just general for the parish? [00:10:39] Speaker B: The general fund is the only fund that is able to do whatever we need to do with it parish wide. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:45] Speaker B: There's not enough money collected in that fund to do anything with, not even just a jail. [00:10:49] Speaker A: Okay. So. Okay. [00:10:51] Speaker B: It is what it is. So. But even transportation, if they have to go from here to another jail or to a doctor's appointment or to the hospital, the sheriff transport, but he sends us a bill. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [00:11:07] Speaker B: So. And everything I'm telling you is about the law, is nobody's breaking any laws. That's just how the laws are written. I don't think it's fair, but that's how it's written. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Okay, got it. [00:11:16] Speaker B: So our issue we have, or I have specifically is the Department of Corrections. When a person is convicted of a crime and. And is pled guilty or convicted in court, okay. At that time they transfer from parish inmate to the Department of Corrections. [00:11:37] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:38] Speaker B: A state prisoner. So they in the same jail, waiting to be whatever process, but sent wherever else. Yeah, if they even get sent. But at that time did not I was. They become state. [00:11:52] Speaker A: So then. Wait, I'm sorry, I have a question. So we have people in the parish jail that have already been convicted. [00:11:59] Speaker B: We have. Today we have 70. [00:12:01] Speaker A: And they, they will not be transferred to other places they're going to stay there. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Well, they're here now. And every Monday DLC sometimes picks up some, but DLC is full. Okay. [00:12:14] Speaker A: So my understanding was that the jail was not intended to be permanent housing. [00:12:18] Speaker B: No, it's not. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Oh, it's not. [00:12:20] Speaker B: No, it's not. It's not. But it. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Oh, dang. Okay. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Whenever an inmate is in jail, we have them. So you can't just throw them out. Right. [00:12:30] Speaker A: But at the same time, okay, so [00:12:32] Speaker B: we contact the state and they, they tell us the same thing. They full. The state is full. Okay. And Okay, I understand that part of it. I Understand that the state is full. I understand that a couple years ago they changed the laws where a person has to serve more time. So instead of having a good time, serve and everything else, you got to serve. I want to say it's 85% of your time, regardless. So that leaves more people in jail longer, which also gives you less room to put new people in jail. [00:13:05] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, but that's on the state side. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, but it. Whenever you have the state system full. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Wow. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Then you. The one that's here of state, they have no place to put them. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:19] Speaker B: So what the state does is they pay the share of $29.39 a day to hold a state inmate. [00:13:26] Speaker A: To hold the ones that are convicted. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Correct. The ones that are actually state inmates. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Okay, got it. [00:13:30] Speaker B: So where me and a sheriff don't see eye to eye on is this. He pays us $3 and 50 cents a day to feed that inmate. [00:13:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:39] Speaker B: And that's it. So. And going back and forth to court and whatever else, they don't think that they should be paying the fixed costs at the jail because the fixed cost mean electricity, water, like, we would have that anyway, whether we had a state inmate in there or not. Okay. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:58] Speaker B: So that was 17 a day per inmate. That's what it costs us with the fixed cost included. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Without the fixed cost, it comes down to ten dollars and fifty cents. All right. [00:14:10] Speaker A: The fixed cost is just the building, right? [00:14:12] Speaker B: The fixed cost is the building. Yes. And like, I even took the. The kitchen staff out. [00:14:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:19] Speaker B: You know, I don't think that's a fixed cost, but I took it out. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:22] Speaker B: And it numbers down to $10 and 50 cents a day. [00:14:25] Speaker A: And this is just the ones who are convicted that we're talking about right now. Okay. [00:14:28] Speaker B: So we looking to get seven more dollars a day for those state inmates because the sheriff is collecting this money, the whole $29.39. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:39] Speaker B: And he doesn't have any expense with his inmates other than a deputy, which is, again, a fixed cost of the sheriff. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:47] Speaker B: You know, so he can't really count that. Like, I can't count, according to them. I can't count the. The kitchen or I can't count the building. So if we paying apples and apples, his fixed cost is the deputies that's going to be there regardless. [00:15:00] Speaker A: That's the ones who are working the jail. Correct. Staff of the jail. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Just a jail. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Roll deputies. Just. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Just the jail, Jeff. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, got it. [00:15:08] Speaker B: So if we take into consideration all of that, then we should just go half on what he collects, and then everybody should be happy. You would think. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [00:15:17] Speaker B: That's not what they want to do. They don't think they owe anything. So, in essence, he's collecting 29, 39 a day. [00:15:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:24] Speaker B: To house an inmate that he's only paying us 350 a day to house. [00:15:28] Speaker A: Got it. [00:15:29] Speaker B: So he's making a ton of money on this. [00:15:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:32] Speaker B: And we're not asking for anything more than what it costs to parish, which would be a great help for us, you know. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:39] Speaker B: At least get back the cost. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:41] Speaker B: You know, but that's the real issue right now. And I think at some point we'll get to an answer, But I can't back off of it, because that's what a cost is for the Paris government. And there's no reason why any sheriff in the state of Louisiana should be taking money from the state and not reimbursing the parishes for what it cost the parishes to house that inmate. You know, the sheriff came to a council meeting the other day, and he said he keeps state inmates there because it helps the people. Well, according to the Department of Corrections, the state inmates should not be leaving the jail. They should not be on trustee status. They should not be leaving the jail at all. [00:16:19] Speaker A: So when he says they're helping the people, he means they're working as trustees. [00:16:22] Speaker B: Correct. [00:16:23] Speaker A: Oh, I understand. [00:16:24] Speaker B: When they go paint or they're picking [00:16:27] Speaker A: up trash on the side of the road. Right, yeah. Okay. [00:16:30] Speaker B: So if there's any state inmates doing that is violating the DOC policy. Not supposed to do that. DOC inmates not supposed to leave the jail. [00:16:38] Speaker A: Got it. [00:16:38] Speaker B: So. And that's another thing by itself. But he also made a statement that he wants to keep people close to home. Okay. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:47] Speaker B: Well, before he was shipping out parish inmates. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Okay, okay. [00:16:51] Speaker B: To other jails and just keeping state inmates here. Well, it was costing Paris government to house him and other parishes back then. It was $26.39 a day. He was. [00:17:04] Speaker A: And the parish had to pay that. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Yes, the parish. [00:17:06] Speaker A: To go put. Okay. I'm tracking. [00:17:09] Speaker B: So tracking. And the last. Last year we did. We. We notified every sheriff in the state of Louisiana to house our inmates. I told him, I'm going to pay you 350 a day to house our inmates, not a dollar more. And they said, well, you can have your inmates back. I'm good with that. It didn't bother me. It's not my problem. I'm not paying another share of three more than 300. And 50 a day to house an inmate. When the sheriff here is collecting that $26.39 a day, you know, for our. As a placement in our jail that we should have file parish inmates. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:46] Speaker B: Bottom line. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:48] Speaker B: So. [00:17:48] Speaker A: So best outcome in a situation like [00:17:50] Speaker B: this, the best outcome is what we have now, which is now no inmates go out of parish. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Got it? [00:17:56] Speaker B: They hear this morning, I think we have 351 inmates. Yeah, 351 total inmates. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:06] Speaker B: We're going to hold 310. [00:18:10] Speaker A: So where are the other 40? [00:18:12] Speaker B: They in there. And. And it becomes. And it becomes an overcrowding issue. But it's not a Paris government problem. It becomes a sheriff's department problem. Okay, but there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a clause in the statute that allows the sheriff to declare the emergency on the jail. [00:18:28] Speaker A: And how's an overcrowd? [00:18:30] Speaker B: And how's more, Whenever there's an overcrowding of the inmates, the sheriff has options to do. He has to notify different agencies and different things. The statute allows for overcrowding emergency. [00:18:42] Speaker A: So doesn't the city have a jail as well? Doesn't the police department have a jail? Opelous police department? [00:18:47] Speaker B: They do, yes. [00:18:48] Speaker A: But it's not functional. [00:18:49] Speaker B: It's not operating. No, because again, that costs us a lot of money to operate that jail and it only holds like 20 people. [00:18:55] Speaker A: If that was operating, would that be beneficial? Would that solve any of these problems? [00:18:59] Speaker B: No, no. 120 people is not enough to worry about. [00:19:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:19:02] Speaker B: Not. Not for the cost to be placed. There is problems. And so, so when you have this many inmates in there, if the sheriff thinks that it's an emergency, he can declare it. Most sheriff don't do that. You know, they don't want to say, oh, we got overcrowding problem. Well, you do have an overcrowding problem. Okay. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:19:21] Speaker B: But it's. But it is what it is, and there's nothing that we can do about it. And the state doesn't take their inmates. According to them, they overcrowded. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:30] Speaker B: So what you do, you know, but it's not for us as a Paris government to ship out parish inmates and pay that money that he's collecting on the other side of it. [00:19:41] Speaker A: Got it. [00:19:41] Speaker B: You know, it's just not fair. [00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:42] Speaker B: You know, so one of the things that the 27 JDC did was by three years ago, the DA, the judges and everybody got together, public defenders, and they came up with a new system and it makes the process move faster. [00:19:57] Speaker A: The justice system? [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:59] Speaker A: On a local level. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Yes, on this level here in our parish. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:02] Speaker B: And it's working great. The DA's office is prosecuting cases. They bring in people to trial. The public defender's office is working on that process as well. They have a new person in charge of that and. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Which is who? [00:20:17] Speaker B: That's Antonio Burat. [00:20:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:19] Speaker B: He's a local attorney. He's, he's been put in charge of this, this area for the public defenders. And this is work in progress. There's a lot of studies to be done. The, the funding mechanism for the public defenders is, is not as good as it should be. So therefore you have inmates in jail that don't see their attorneys. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I've hear compensation is like. Yeah, really poor. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of difficult. Yeah, it's getting better, but it's going to take some time for that to get fixed and, and they working on that. So. But the bottom line is the system is working a whole lot better than it was. Yeah. And then, but it also. Either you're going to, and I say this all the time, either you're going to be guilty or not guilty. Me, I don't care. Let the process work. Okay. If you're not guilty, you're out of jail. If you're guilty, unfortunately, you're stuck in our jail until DOC takes you. But they're not on our dime anymore. Not on the parish's dime. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Right. Okay. [00:21:15] Speaker B: So that's the difference. So you all have a, a motivation to process quickly because that means it's inmates are no longer on your budget. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Correct. Right. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Or at least they can be off of it faster. [00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Even if they have to sit for a little while. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Even if they sitting in our jail, you know, it is costing us money. And now the sheriff, we reimbursed it and it'd be absolutely no cost. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Right. Sure. [00:21:37] Speaker B: It'd be a really, a good system. But when an inmate is, is, is incarcerated in our jail, on the parish system, we're responsible for all the medical or the medicines and everything. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:50] Speaker B: When it becomes state, that's a state problem, you know, so, so the process is working a whole lot better. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:58] Speaker B: Honestly, the Judges and the DA's office and the public defenders are all making this stuff work. And like I said earlier, the DA's office is prosecuting cases. Well, when you prosecute cases, if you get a lot more convictions, then you got more people in jail. [00:22:13] Speaker A: Sure. [00:22:14] Speaker B: So. But at least the system is not stagnant. It's not just Sitting there. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Sure. [00:22:18] Speaker B: So that's a good thing for us. [00:22:19] Speaker A: And it seems like a fundamental thing that's underneath everything else is housing and penalties for conviction. Right. Like, so we have, we have a lot more people getting convicted of things that they probably should be getting convicted for, but then we don't have anywhere to put them. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:22:40] Speaker A: According to the standards of our current legal system, which is you go to jail for a long time if you do something wrong. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I mean, they did change that in the statute. And so you got to serve more time once you are convicted. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker B: And not that I don't disagree with it, I just disagree on there was no place to put them whenever they pass this law. [00:22:59] Speaker A: So is Saint Leger Parish going to have to expand its jail operations at some point? [00:23:05] Speaker B: I can, I can actually get any kind of grant to build a brand new jail. Oh, that's not going to be a problem. The problem is I can build a thousand bed facility, would grant money from the federal government with no problem. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:18] Speaker B: But I can't feed them, I can't medicate him. Oh, there's no money for that. [00:23:23] Speaker A: I understand. So it's not facility. No, it's care of inmates. [00:23:27] Speaker B: Care and operations. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Got it. [00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no reason. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Recurring costs. Okay, I understand. [00:23:34] Speaker B: There's nothing out there that says here, paris government, since you have these inmates, we're going to give you this extra money to house these extra inmates. It's just not there. [00:23:43] Speaker A: See, this is really fascinating to me because it is, it's indicative of the state of the culture that we live in right now. Like, there's a lot of people going to jail. We're full. We're full on a state level, we're full. On a local level, that means something. That means something about Louisiana as a whole. But we also are saying, let's make the consequences worse. But now we have nowhere to put these people. Like, this is such a fascinating cultural study for me right now. And intuitively where I am is I go back to, what if instead we just shore the families up. What if we go all the way down to that place and say, hey, let's make a city that fears the Lord, that follows him and his ways. Let's try and go after the culture that way at a fundamental level. Then we won't have so many issues going on like this. On a statewide level, this is fascinating. [00:24:34] Speaker B: So one of the other things is, so whenever we. You see this problem, okay. So you see the overcrowding in the jails. So the answer is not just to put them in jail and throw the key away. I don't believe in. In that. I mean, so what we did is we started a Second Chance program about three years ago. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:51] Speaker B: And the Second chance program is funded through the OPR settlement that we got, is we get it in for the next 17 years. And what's OPR? I'm sorry? It's the OPR. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Opioid. Oh, opioid. Okay, gotcha. [00:25:06] Speaker B: So they give us money every year. We put that money towards programs. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Help. And it has to help people who are addicted to drugs and whatnot and everything else. So it works out good. Because if you come in jail, you don't automatically or like you bad. Okay. You know, if it's your first time offense or something is. We're going to work with you. We're going to figure out a way. So what we did with this opioid money is $50,000 a year goes to the district attorney's office, $50,000 a year goes to the public defender's office and 50,000 goes to the judges. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:44] Speaker B: So what the DA and the public defenders do is every morning in lineup, they have an ADA and a public defendant in court. So they see it firsthand right away and they can kit somebody there instead of making that whole long process go through, then they look at them and they assess them and then they fit and they qualify for the Second chance. [00:26:05] Speaker A: So you have the da so the prosecution and the defense are right there at the same time. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Yes. [00:26:10] Speaker A: And you're incentivizing them to make a deal before it goes to trial, before [00:26:15] Speaker B: he even gets into the next phase. [00:26:18] Speaker A: I see. Okay, I got you. I got you. [00:26:20] Speaker B: So those people who may offend and maybe it's not that serious of an offense, let's catch him and try to get him into treatment. Okay. Let's get him where they need to be at because. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so this guy fell off. But it's obviously out of care for. Out of character for him. This is a first time offense. Can we make a deal? Can we figure something out real quick so that they don't have to go all the way through the whole system? Right, I understand. Okay. [00:26:44] Speaker B: So that gets him into help sooner rather than later. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:47] Speaker B: And then. [00:26:47] Speaker A: And help. We're talking like addiction issues, correct? Yeah, I'm understanding. [00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So it saves the parish government a lot of money because we don't have to house them in our jail. Let him sit there and take up his bed and everything else. Instead of that, we have him in a Facility, getting the help he needs or she needs. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Got it. [00:27:04] Speaker B: So if we can save some people from not reoccurring, then there's a benefit to everybody, including that person and their families. So we look for that if we can. And, and we have people in courtroom every morning looking at that along with the DA and aid and the public defender. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Got it. So best case scenario, all this stuff that's going through trial right now, what's, what's your desired outcome? $7 if we can get. [00:27:32] Speaker B: No, not $7. We're trying to get to 1050 now. [00:27:35] Speaker A: So. Seven more. Seven more dollars. Yeah, that's what I mean. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Yeah, seven more dollars. Which would make us. That's on a five year average of what it cost us to house. And I took out cost that I think is not fixed cost, but just to make sure we can get to an answer. Yeah, I took those numbers out and that's where it comes down to $10.50 a day on that last five year average. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Okay, gotcha. And what do you think? You think it's going to happen? [00:28:00] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know. I'm hoping that we can get to that answer and in the near future and hopefully they understand where we're coming from. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:09] Speaker B: But that's up to them. At this point. We can, I mean, I don't want to go lower than what the actual cost is. And that's not, we don't need to, we don't need to negotiate because I think we in the driver's seat on this one because we know what the cost is, we know how much they getting. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:24] Speaker B: And the sheriff went in front of the council several times saying it's a money maker for the sheriff's office. Yeah, you know, that's not good, you know, so he, you know, you can't count the deputies in his cost assessment because that's a fixed cost. Whether he has one inmate in there. Just like he tells us, whether you have animating there or not, you still have to have that building, but you still have to have that deputy. So you can't count that. So back to square, square one, 1050 is what we'll be going to call the variable cost. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Okay, gotcha. Well, so let's talk budget. So general lay of the land, things are tight. You said the general fund, right? So general fund runs, you said three and a half mils, is that right? [00:29:08] Speaker B: Three and a half. 3.78 mils of property tax that comes in. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Okay, so that's what, like a little more than $3 million a year. [00:29:16] Speaker B: It's two points. $2.7 million a year. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Okay. $2.7 million. [00:29:21] Speaker B: And what we get in one mil equals to $1 of every $1,000 of assessed value. [00:29:29] Speaker A: Okay, so that's property tax. [00:29:31] Speaker B: That's property tax, yes. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Is there any sales tax that benefits parish? [00:29:36] Speaker B: The only sales tax we have is a 2 cent sales tax for the roads on. And that's a thing we passed in 2013. [00:29:42] Speaker A: 2013. Is that the smooth ride home thing? Okay, smooth ride home, 2%, but that's. I forget the word. Designated dedicated funds. That's dedicated funds. [00:29:54] Speaker B: Every fund in Paris government is dedicated. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:29:57] Speaker B: Every. Every fund that we have, every bank account that we have holds money and holds accounts that is for whatever reason or another is made for that purpose. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Okay. So in government, sometimes it's internal government decisions, sometimes it's ballot decisions. [00:30:15] Speaker B: Correct? [00:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Or state statutes. [00:30:17] Speaker A: Or state statutes. Yeah. Okay. [00:30:19] Speaker B: So when you have that, then you. You got to try to follow those. Those lines. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Unfortunately, there's the reason why there's. You don't find a degree in government finance, because there's no such thing, because it's not a black and white thing. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:36] Speaker B: Parishes, Paris governments and Paris government budgets and. And finances is very gray. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:44] Speaker B: For a reason. [00:30:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:46] Speaker B: And in fact, you'll see in government finance, you're going to see the due to froms. [00:30:51] Speaker A: Due to friends. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:52] Speaker A: So, okay. [00:30:53] Speaker B: I borrow money from this fund, so I always. So it's a due to, but I get it from that fund. It's a due from. So he goes back and forth. It's not a transfer. It's borrowed money. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Oh, I see. Okay. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Keep the budget going throughout the year because not all of the money comes in at a certain time. [00:31:10] Speaker A: I understand. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So you don't have. [00:31:12] Speaker A: So you have some taxes that maybe they pay out once a year. [00:31:15] Speaker B: Right. And you got something that's coming in every month. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:18] Speaker B: So it just depends on how it's. How is set. So. But you do have the expenses coming in. [00:31:24] Speaker A: No matter what, people have to get paid. [00:31:26] Speaker B: People got to get paid. People got to get the work done on the roads. People got a lot of things have to happen. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:31] Speaker B: So with the budget we have in place now for the last three years, our budget itself, like the actual operating budget is fine. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:41] Speaker B: But it's prior to that, that whenever the sheriff would send out his inmates to other parishes and he don't have to let us know, next thing we know, we get a bill in mail from another sheriff saying we owe him 30, $40,000. So we were getting bills, and in the year's time, it went up to 800 something thousand dollars that you're not budgeted for, but you got to pay [00:32:02] Speaker A: it to these other parishes. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Other parishes. [00:32:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:05] Speaker B: And there's no law saying that the sheriff has to let us know. There's no law saying nothing. The law says that this sheriff and that sheriff can make a deal on their own about what it's going to cost. [00:32:16] Speaker A: But Paris government has to pay for it. [00:32:18] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:32:19] Speaker B: So that's one of the laws that we trying to see about changing because at least let us know that you shipping an inmate out, you know, okay. That the Sheriff's association denied that for us last year. The Paris presidents met with them, and they said, no, we don't want to do that. It's not costing y' all a dollar. Just let us know whenever y' all shipping an inmate out to make sure that we have the funds to pay for it. They don't want no kind of accountability on their. On their actions, and that's okay. But at the end of the day, we have to pay for it. Okay. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:52] Speaker B: So in those years, we didn't have the money to do that, so we had to do whatever we had to do to make it work. So since we started the process of not paying out of Paris prisoners anymore, more than 350 a day, I don't have that expense. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:06] Speaker B: So. But I did have it. And those other years, which took the cash from us. So now we're trying to get it back and try to get things moving in the right direction. [00:33:15] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:15] Speaker B: So that's where we at now. We're not. And we're not in no shape or form in a. In a. With an issue other than the cash is not there. Like, we used to have to fund the government, like, for a year in advance, so we had to use our outside sources to pay other things that was mandated. And of course, the juveniles is a bigger problem now than it ever was. So now we having to pay. We have a contract with Jackson Parish, so in a juvenile. [00:33:41] Speaker A: Jackson Parish? No way. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Yep. [00:33:43] Speaker A: That's where I'm from. [00:33:46] Speaker B: We have a contract with them. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Well, my people thank your people. [00:33:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:49] Speaker A: So. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Well, they actually helping us out real much. I mean, a lot, because they. Not only they take out inmates, but they. They gave us a deal on a contract. So it went to $325 a day. It was 250. Now we paying 325 a day. [00:34:07] Speaker A: A day. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:08] Speaker A: For juveniles. [00:34:09] Speaker B: For juvenile, Yep. [00:34:10] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:34:11] Speaker B: That's 325, not 3.25. That's $325 per day. So we have seven, sometimes eight right now incarcerated, and we have no choice. And look, I'm not asking no judge for no help on something like this. Because of what these juveniles are accused of doing, they need to go and know whatever they feel needs to be done. So we got to find the money to do that. So that runs us about 500 to 600,000 a year, depending for six or seven kids. Yep. [00:34:41] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:34:42] Speaker B: And that's not counting what the city of Appaloosa is in. The city of Eunice is doing. This is just what's in. What's in the parish of what our responsibility is. So for inmate, if a juvenile does something that's a criminal matter, that. Like a murder or attempted murder, when they accused of that, that becomes our issue. [00:34:59] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Okay. [00:35:01] Speaker B: And again, the. The judges don't just send somebody just because, I mean, it's got to be a real issue, and I can't blame them. I mean, we got to find the money to pay for it, and we do it. [00:35:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, so current funding, like, is the parish government budget funded as of right now? [00:35:23] Speaker B: I mean, no, not really, because now with the expenses. So as an example, general fund, okay. We collect $2.7 million in property tax. [00:35:34] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:35] Speaker B: Our mandated expenses in that fund is 4.6 million. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Oh, mandated. That's by the state. [00:35:41] Speaker B: By the state laws. [00:35:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:43] Speaker B: Yeah, got it. So every year, we got to find 1.9 to $2 million in other. Other sources of revenue. [00:35:50] Speaker A: Where do you find it? [00:35:51] Speaker B: Well, we have the occupational licenses, the beer licenses, different licenses, and said that can be put into that fund to help it. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:00] Speaker B: Okay. We do get some court cost, which is not much, but we do get some court costs. So we transfer all that money to general fund. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:07] Speaker B: To spend that difference and make it happen. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:10] Speaker B: So. And that's not counting to fund, like, the roads or anything. That's just talking about just the general fund operations, which is courthouse security and that kind of stuff. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:25] Speaker B: So when you. And there's a lot of talk on Facebook. Okay. And I don't entertain it. [00:36:30] Speaker A: Let's talk about it. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't entertain it because it did not understanding it. [00:36:35] Speaker A: And which thing are you talking about? [00:36:37] Speaker B: Well, the one that's saying that we have all this money in general fund according to what the audit shows. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:44] Speaker B: So audit, general fund. You take the audited numbers in general fund, and you take fund 11, which is general fund that we identify as general fund, and the 4.6 mandated expenses. Not the same thing. [00:36:59] Speaker A: Got it. [00:36:59] Speaker B: When you look at the audited general fund, that consists of 13 funds. So that number's up there. [00:37:06] Speaker A: I see. [00:37:06] Speaker B: But unfortunately, I can't use most of that money to do this. 4.6. [00:37:12] Speaker A: I see. But it's the 4.6 that's mandated. [00:37:14] Speaker B: Mandated. [00:37:14] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. [00:37:15] Speaker B: So when you look at the audited numbers as a general fund, it's a general fund type. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Got it. [00:37:20] Speaker B: It doesn't mean it's a general fund use. Yes, it's a general fund type. So when you look at the actual cash. [00:37:27] Speaker A: So convoluted, man. It really is so convoluted. Okay. [00:37:31] Speaker B: So when you deposit general fund as a type. [00:37:34] Speaker A: Not general fund as a fund. [00:37:35] Speaker B: As a fund that we use for operations. [00:37:37] Speaker A: Okay. Two different things. Correct. Okay. Got it. So when the audit says general fund, it means a type of fund. [00:37:42] Speaker B: It means. Yes. A type of fund which has 13 funds tied to that number. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Good grief. [00:37:48] Speaker B: But it's not the number that we can actually use for general fund for operations. [00:37:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:52] Speaker B: You know? [00:37:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:53] Speaker B: So people look at the order, and they say, look the general fund. Yeah. But that's not our general fund that we can use for operations. And it's a big difference. I can see where people can look at it and say, he's got penny money. No, we don't. Yeah, we don't. We don't have enough money to operate. We never did have enough money to operate. But what I'm not doing is trying to cut any services that people need to have. I don't. I don't think that the people who pay taxes in this parish should be cut any services because of a person who wants to commit a crime. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:27] Speaker B: You know, I tell this to people all the time. Is that you. The inmates dictate our budget. That's just the bottom line. [00:38:36] Speaker A: If they're there, it's got to be paid for. [00:38:38] Speaker B: Yes. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:39] Speaker B: So if they break the law, it affects our budget. If they come in and they're not healthy, it help. It. It affects our budget a lot. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:48] Speaker B: You know, and if they commit. Or alleged committing of serious crimes, I can't do anything about it except pay the bill. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:56] Speaker B: You know, if they have drug. Drug charges, that's not too serious. And we can maybe work with them on something. The judges and the d. A. And the. And the public defenders work with us on that to get this system moving faster for those. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't go get a third time offender. They've done a violent crime. [00:39:15] Speaker B: Like, I'm sorry we stuck with them. [00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah. They're going to jail. [00:39:18] Speaker B: Yes. And, and we're just gonna have to bite that bullet and that's okay. But. But we don't know what the next day brings. So I'm going to give you an example. And this is something that I even told that to people in D.C. and I brought pictures because you have to. You have to see it to believe it and live it to understand it. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Okay. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Okay. A Friday night, I'm at my house, I live by Eunice, and I get a phone call from the, from ogh, from a doctor, saying, jesse, we got an inmate over here that I'm have to cut his feet off. [00:39:51] Speaker A: What? [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So he had diabetes and. Oh, something else. I forgot what it is. And I said, doc, can you just give me 20 minutes to get to the hospital? I can come and talk to you in person so I can understand what's happening. And I didn't know the charges or anything, so I said, let me just get there. So I left my house. It takes me about 18 minutes to get to Ogh. All right. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:12] Speaker B: When I leave my house, I get a phone call from the sheriff's office saying that the inmates had escaped, those juveniles had escaped at that time. In between those. Yeah. Then I get to OGH and OPD's there with people that shot at each other and they hit each other, but they weren't intended to hit each other. There were two people shooting, and so they arrested. And guess who's Bill. That is Paris government. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Oh, good. [00:40:35] Speaker B: So in that time frame, 20 minute time frame, how do you expect to run a budget whenever that stuff happens, that's out of your control, it's impossible. But to get to the person who had one toe on two feet. I walked in that room and he's just smiling in that bed. And I'm thinking, what the heck? You know? But he had diabetes so bad that his, his feet were actually rotten and everything else. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:41:03] Speaker B: So I said, doc, can you give me just a few days to kind of process this? It doesn't have to be here, it don't have to be done tonight, but you got about 30 days. I said, okay. So we did what we had to do. All right. His. His crimes were. Believe it or not, he was beating his wife. And I looked at him, I said, how in the heck did you beat your wife? You came and Walk. You know, I make it around. I make it. I said, obviously you do. [00:41:33] Speaker A: So good grief. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So he had that happen in and we responsible. So we definitely not gonna let this guy out. You know, I'm not even gonna ask a judge for this. So. So we bought some time. The DA's office worked with us public defenders and the judges, and within the 30 days, he took a plea and turned over to the state. So it becomes a state issue, not a parish issue anymore. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:58] Speaker B: But here's the difference. If I'm not boots on the ground and following up at all this stuff, then we got a $400,000 bill GH for them cutting off his feet. [00:42:08] Speaker A: Holy smokes. [00:42:09] Speaker B: Because that's just how the process is. I tell the parish president, they said, I'm not going to no hospital. I said, well, I ain't got no choice because I don't have $400,000 to go do this with. So I follow up on all those things myself. I don't bring, I don't send staff to do that. I do it myself so I can get a better picture so I can better understand it. I'm not going to ask a judge to help me with an inmate that should not be out. [00:42:33] Speaker A: Sure. [00:42:34] Speaker B: But I got to figure out a way how to pay the bill or figure out a way to get him process and get to the state dealt [00:42:40] Speaker A: with and get on a stable. [00:42:41] Speaker B: So that's where the budget comes in. And if we're not working on that. [00:42:46] Speaker A: So they called you, you had to figure out a way to work with the judge to fast track his case, to get a plea or conviction done. [00:42:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:53] Speaker A: So that the fees now aren't landing directly on parish government, they're landing on stateside. Holy smokes, man. [00:43:00] Speaker B: But, and while you're driving to the hospital, you find out about a shooting [00:43:06] Speaker A: and the oh my gosh. Inmates. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Wow, that's crazy. [00:43:11] Speaker A: This is wild amounts of bureaucracy, Jesse. [00:43:14] Speaker B: You can't budget for this. And, and there's no way you can because it's out of your control. [00:43:19] Speaker A: Sure. [00:43:20] Speaker B: And, but again, you're responsible for it. [00:43:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:23] Speaker B: So we do what we got to do. So when it comes down to the actual budget itself, our budget within the 5% range every year. [00:43:31] Speaker A: Okay, what do you mean 5%? [00:43:33] Speaker B: And you can either go over or under 5% without having to amend. [00:43:36] Speaker A: Oh, I see. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:43:37] Speaker A: So you're talking about total budget. [00:43:39] Speaker B: Total budget, you know, and, and, and, and, well, total budget within the funds. [00:43:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:43] Speaker B: Okay. And when we're talking about the budget and the funds we're talking about, like, each individual fund by itself before, it's actually like the 13 funds are composed together, so they make that one general fund. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:56] Speaker B: So you try to make that within that 5% range. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Some years you can do, some years you can't. Some stuff is out of your control. Again, you have. You got hurricanes, you got floods, you got natural disaster that happened that we responsible for. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Sure. [00:44:09] Speaker B: You know, again, you know, we're gonna. We're gonna go. We're gonna be out there to help the people and the staff that we have is out there with us. Okay. FEMA does reimburse us sometimes, and the governor himself has called several times and said, we're gonna figure out a way to get you funded just because we got to make sure we take care of your people in that parish. And Governor Landry has always made that happen for us. Some kind of way, some kind of how he pulls a rabbit out of a hat, and it helps us. It takes some time with fema, and they have so many loopholes, and it's just a. It's a. It's a process. But when you have these floods, you can't say, it's not my problem. You don't. You can't. You don't do that to your people. You go out there, you take care of the people, and it costs money, but you got to do what you got to do. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:58] Speaker B: So you don't know what to expect next. But that's the challenge. [00:45:03] Speaker A: So then let me rehash this. Tell me if I'm understanding you correctly. So the general fund of the budget exists underfunded according to state mandates. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:14] Speaker A: It's short a million and some change just by default. [00:45:18] Speaker B: A million nine every year. [00:45:19] Speaker A: A million nine every year. It's short. So almost two million. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:22] Speaker A: Is that right? Okay. So a million nine every year. It's short no matter what. Okay. And you have to retroactively try to work that back. You got to try to find about $2 million every year to be able to put that money back in. Most time is through fees like liquor licenses or other types of licenses. Correct. Okay. Or it's funding from outside. So you're finding state. Like through Governor Landry, you're finding federal dollars. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Well, that money comes in as a payback. There's no operation. There's no reoccurring revenue from any state or federal governments. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:57] Speaker B: So when we spend money in general fund, that is like a disaster. We. We apply to get the money back if we can. We Get a FEMA with FEMA or with the state, but we get a percentage of it back, which is better than nothing. But I can say this. You got to stay on top of that and make sure you get every dollar you can. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Got it? [00:46:16] Speaker B: Or it shows at the end of the year. [00:46:18] Speaker A: And when you don't have enough money in the general fund somebody talked about earlier, you do. What did you call it? Due to froms. [00:46:25] Speaker B: That's right, due to froms. [00:46:27] Speaker A: Between dedicated funds. [00:46:28] Speaker B: Between funds within the government. Yeah. We have like 43 or 44 different funds. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:33] Speaker B: And those funds all have a duty to do. All right. [00:46:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:39] Speaker B: Some have more money at times than others. So you borrow from this one to pay that one, and then at the end of the year you kind of rearrange everything back where it comes in. Everybody's whole. [00:46:48] Speaker A: I got it. [00:46:49] Speaker B: The unfortunate thing right now is that the $1.8 million that's born from Fund 151, which is the smooth ride home. [00:46:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:57] Speaker B: We have a plan to pay it back now, but we didn't have the opportunities to do it before where now we. We're seeing some, thank God, lighted into the tunnel where we can start paying it back. So in the budget, we have 350 this year and 350 next year and that's going to start paying it back. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:16] Speaker B: The lump sum that we could be getting from these solar forms, wind forms and other projects throughout the parish is what's going to pay off the loan completely. And so the last two years, Next ERA has a form by Leonville. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I've seen that one. There's another one you're talking about. [00:47:38] Speaker B: So they have that one and they're waiting on a lot of things to happen and it's taking them too long. So they selling that project to another company. [00:47:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:46] Speaker B: Which is going to start at the first of the year. Once they start and they start buying product, then they're going to start paying us the pilot payments, which is money that they would have paid in taxes, but they paying less to bring the. The project here. [00:48:03] Speaker A: Okay. [00:48:04] Speaker B: But they paint it to the Paris government and then that money is going to be used to pay back what's old and then put money in the bank for these 25 matches on other federal grants and other things that come through. That's how I plan with this, with this, with this money that comes in. It's not. It's not a reoccurring revenue on that. On that part. [00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:26] Speaker B: But it's money that comes in initially when somebody comes and buys stuff from the sales tax and it. So we. We're trying to put that there in the place of it. And then. And it's a pilot. They'll call a pilot. A pilot payment. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:39] Speaker B: So what a lot of people are not understanding and some of these council members don't understand light source BP off in pesos. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:48:48] Speaker B: That's the one that's going to ville plat. They come in, they got their operation running. They're doing a great job with it. They pay in $453,000 a year in pilot payments. And it goes through the tax assessor's office and through the sheriff's office. And is. Is. Is sent out. Okay. Payment in lieu of taxes in order to get them here. The benefit of it is, of course, the sales tax that initially did. Whenever they did the actual buying of the products, everything on the ground. The pilot payment is for the equipment that would be taxed at 100% as like a property tax. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:49:31] Speaker B: So we made a deal with them, abatement of 65%. They only paid 35% over a period [00:49:38] Speaker A: of 15 years of what they would owe. [00:49:40] Speaker B: Of what they would have paid in property taxes for that equipment. [00:49:43] Speaker A: Okay, got it. [00:49:44] Speaker B: Which is $453,000 a year for 15 years. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:49:48] Speaker B: That money comes in every year now. Started last year. But Paris government only gets 11% of that money. [00:49:55] Speaker A: Got it. [00:49:55] Speaker B: That's what people don't understanding. We don't get a lot of ad verm tax. We don't get a lot of tax money on property tax because it passes [00:50:01] Speaker A: through the other office. [00:50:02] Speaker B: It passes through. Everybody gets a chunk of that. [00:50:04] Speaker A: Got it. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Is. I want to say it's 30, 33.62 meals of property taxes. That. And it's lumped in as Paris taxes. But the school board gets like 22 meals. We get 3.78. The tax assessor gets a little over one meal. She don't get much. And then the sheriff gets 4.12. And then you gotta. If there's a far district out there, they get some of that money. So everybody gets their portion. [00:50:30] Speaker A: So wait, hold on. Roll that back. You said the parish gets 3.78 meals and the school board gets 22. [00:50:36] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Okay. Got it. [00:50:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's how, that's how. That's just how it's done. [00:50:41] Speaker A: Got it though. [00:50:42] Speaker B: They get like 61, 62 of the actual abroad taxes that come in. [00:50:47] Speaker A: That's property tax. [00:50:48] Speaker B: Property taxes, yes. Wow. So now. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Holy smokes. That's high okay, sorry, go ahead. [00:50:55] Speaker B: So everybody, everybody gets their money and, and we get, like I said, 11% of that money of the 453,000. Now the benefit to this is the land in which the solar farm sits on was once farmland. Okay. [00:51:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:14] Speaker B: So it's, it's only valued at one tenth of the value on the assessed value side of. It's not farmland. [00:51:21] Speaker A: That's right, yeah. Because you, you pay less taxes on agricultural. [00:51:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Land. Yes. [00:51:25] Speaker B: So, which is great, you know, so it turns from agricultural to commercial. [00:51:30] Speaker A: For the solar farm. [00:51:31] Speaker B: For the solar farm. [00:51:32] Speaker A: Got it. [00:51:32] Speaker B: The landowner himself or herself does not pay the difference. The solar farm people pay the difference. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:39] Speaker B: So our taxes go up on advilorum on property taxes from agriculture to commercial, which goes to 50, 500 an acre versus hardly nothing before. Okay, so there's a big benefit there, but again we only get about 10, 11 of that. Okay, but everybody's, you start seeing more things happen. But if you think about it, you got like forty something thousand dollars from one thing and you collect another, say $10,000 from this on that same piece of property that before gave us hardly nothing. [00:52:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:52:09] Speaker B: Okay, so you take that and that's, that's great. Put it in general fund and you, you can do what you got to do with that and hopefully it makes it better. [00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:17] Speaker B: Then you have Walmart distribution center. Okay. We made a deal with them. It took us, took us longer than I wanted to, I'll tell you like this. But it's not Walmart's fault, that I can tell you. So but that deal is going through and they're going to invest 150 million, give or take on doing some work at the, at this, at the place. [00:52:38] Speaker A: Yeah, the expansion, I've heard about this. Yeah, they're, they're developing and building in a lot more like robot automations inside of their system. Yeah, I've heard about this. [00:52:46] Speaker B: So what our questions to Walmart was how many jobs are they going to lose? Because I mean you're taking people's livelihoods and they said not gonna lose any jobs. The jobs that they cannot feel now, just not gonna have them there no more. This is going to replace them. Oh, they can't fill them anyway, so, so that project alone is going to be great for the parish. And again that's also a pilot payment that's going to be happening. [00:53:11] Speaker A: The payment in lieu of taxes. [00:53:13] Speaker B: Payment in lieu of taxes. And that's only for the actual project on the inside, the actual equipment that they buy and everything else. Yeah. So the, the thing that's different with Walmart distribution now is that since 1999, they haven't paid any property taxes on the building and grounds. [00:53:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:53:35] Speaker B: Because they had an agreement with them [00:53:37] Speaker A: to get them into town where. [00:53:39] Speaker B: To get them to our parish. [00:53:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:41] Speaker B: So, I mean, hey, you do what you got to do to get these large companies to come in. And so I'm not saying that anybody did anything wrong. It's just that it takes a lot of dealing to make that happen. The problem came in is that Walmart was ready to become taxpayers probably like four years ago. [00:53:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:53:58] Speaker B: You know, and they were ready to do this on, on, on our side. It didn't happen as fast as what I would have liked to have seen it happen. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Okay. [00:54:09] Speaker B: But myself and Sherry McGovern, the tax assessor, got together and we started negotiation with Walmart and we made a deal with them. And last year was their first year paying property taxes on the building and the grounds with no type of abatement. And they were very happy with that. We, we were shocked. Like they said, we, we've been wanting to be taxpayers. We sent letters and saying, look, we want to take our option that we have in the agreement that we want to become owners of the building because at that time, whenever they came in, they, they can't to get the tax breaks, they have to be under government entity. At that time, it was sled. [00:54:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:47] Speaker B: And, and that's where the problems came in at, where after the fact, it took too long for that to take place. So we got involved and we were shocked to see how Walmart was so easy to work with and ready to, [00:55:01] Speaker A: and ready to write the check. [00:55:03] Speaker B: Yes. They said, we want to be good neighbors and we want to stay. We want to stay where we are. And they, they really did a great job and it turned out great. [00:55:15] Speaker A: So there's prospects, there's prospects of a revenue increase over time is what looks like. [00:55:19] Speaker B: We have a lot of different activities that's happening in our parish that people don't know about, that I'm not at liberty to talk about, but. [00:55:26] Speaker A: Oh, come on, Jesse. [00:55:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I would love to tell [00:55:28] Speaker A: you, Break the news. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I would love to say those things, but it's something that's going to be great for our parish. [00:55:36] Speaker A: So SpaceX is moving to Saint Legra parish is what you're telling me right now? [00:55:39] Speaker B: No, but other subjects related to SpaceX, which is a great thing. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Oh, snap. All right, you heard it here. Let's go, let's go. [00:55:49] Speaker B: And when I tell You. I had to look at these people and say, you sure you. You want to. Yep, we want to do it right over there. And we want to do this, this, this, and this. [00:56:00] Speaker A: And I'm thinking, let's go. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. So we got a lot of stuff working with the parish, A lot of good things happening in the parish, and it just takes so much time. And then again, so politics come into play, next year's election for me. And of course, you could have a couple people that want to run against me and do whatever they got to do. I don't care. Let anybody run, have fun, do what they got to do. It doesn't bother me. It's not going to stop me from doing my work every day, because I'm not going to lose focus on the goal, which is to make sure that our parish moves in the right direction the whole time I'm here. And some people don't like it, and that's okay. [00:56:37] Speaker A: Sure. [00:56:37] Speaker B: They got three or four council members that don't like it. It's because they wanted to be Paris president. They didn't win, or they know they can't win. And. And I'll tell that to the face. It doesn't matter to me. They know that. But don't stop the system from working because you jealous and you want to become Paris president. You can't. Last night, we had a meeting about ogh. That had no sense whatsoever in there. None is because two of the council members went talk to ogh, found out that Correct Care owed OGH some money. And Correct Care is part of a state program that takes care of inmate stuff. They made it sound like the Paris government owed $500,000 to OGH. And it just kept on talking about it. And I said, hold on, we got. So I called a special meeting of the council last night, and they had O.J. come up there and say, no, Paris government doesn't always nothing. Correct Care owes us, which is they take care of inmates throughout the state. [00:57:29] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:30] Speaker B: So it could be somebody from Oberlin or Oakdale, somebody that came in, but it's something that the state got to pay, not us. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:36] Speaker B: It takes time away from what we should be doing. [00:57:39] Speaker A: Well, it also seems like the system is intentionally convoluted and very complex to understand. Like the thing you were talking about, the general fund, that's not really a general fund. This is the actual general fund. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's. That seems like almost intentionally bureaucratically complex. [00:57:57] Speaker B: And I know that is Done that way for reasons of audit purposes. I can, I get all of that. But whenever the people in the public look at an audit report and it's [00:58:07] Speaker A: very difficult to understand. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And general fund is not the same. General fund is what we talk about. Fund 11, which is what we call general fund. [00:58:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:14] Speaker B: Our general fund operations. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about Fund 151. We talked about it for a second. So there's accusations out there that moving that money at all is illegal. [00:58:24] Speaker B: It's not. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:25] Speaker B: It's not. I'm gonna tell you why. [00:58:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:27] Speaker B: If. If we would move that money in a transfer type. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:33] Speaker B: Okay. Which means I'm taking it from that fund and I'm transferring it to this fund. Which means I'm not paying it back. I'm giving it to this fund. [00:58:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:58:39] Speaker B: That's illegal. [00:58:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:58:40] Speaker B: You can't do that. [00:58:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:42] Speaker B: Which is why government finance has due to funds, which means you're allowed to borrow money from one fund to the other. [00:58:47] Speaker A: Got it. [00:58:48] Speaker B: As long as you intend on paying it back. [00:58:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:50] Speaker B: There's no time frame in which you should pay it back. Okay. Obviously you want to pay it back as soon as possible and that's what we're going to do. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:58] Speaker B: But whenever you have no choice and your bills are coming in and you got to pay the bills because somebody [00:59:06] Speaker A: has both their foot that have to be cut off. [00:59:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you have. I mean, you have no choice. You know, so you do what you got to do to make it work and then. And hopefully that everything works out at the end and it's getting there. And if people say cut the budget, Cut the budget. You cut what? You can't cut mandates. The law says I can't do that. Law says you got to fund them. So how you could, how you turn around and cut. So cut enough to fix that. [00:59:33] Speaker A: What is your long term plan for not being negative? Like how do we course correct in that? So we can't cut because there's nothing left to cut. [00:59:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Revenue generation seems slow. It seems like it's happening, but it does seem slow. Like what's, what's the, what's the long term plan to fix? [00:59:54] Speaker B: So I don't see where we ever going to come come up with enough money to say we can fund mandated expenses with general fund taxes because you don't collect enough taxes to do that with. [01:00:05] Speaker A: Okay. [01:00:06] Speaker B: And let me just tell you, we don't want to have our mandates, especially the system, the court system be short of money where they don't have the staff to produce the work that they producing. Because if, if, if you follow, follow, the whole process is that everybody's roles have to work for the outcome to come. If you sow this outcome over here, you still stuck with that inmate in that jail longer because costs you more. And it's not fair to that inmate not, not to have his or her day in trial, you know. So you want to fund the court system as much as you possibly can so that it can function like it should be and, and produce that end result for that inmate. [01:00:50] Speaker A: Okay. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Because you have that cost whether you want it or not. So it's best for everybody. That inmate gets to go to court and decide. The judge and the jury decides what happens. That and if you go, if you acquit it, have a good day. If you're guilty next leg, you know, go to the next level, you know, but you can't, you know, the mandates are there and it's hard to fund them because they limited on what they can raise, you know, so they have to rely on the government. So. [01:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah, but what do you think? Like, what's the answer? Is the answer population growth attracting businesses? Is that the answer? [01:01:25] Speaker B: So obviously, if we can bring in more businesses, that stays in the rural areas. That's the key word. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Okay. [01:01:33] Speaker B: If the businesses come into the municipalities, it doesn't fix our problem. [01:01:38] Speaker A: I see. [01:01:40] Speaker B: Really doesn't. It doesn't give us the opportunity to get that extra Avalon taxes to come into general fund to offset some of the expenses. [01:01:47] Speaker A: I understand. [01:01:47] Speaker B: If it comes into the municipality, they get the taxes on that, but at the same time, we got to take care of the inmates. [01:01:54] Speaker A: Got it. So the. It sounds like large scale industrial or large scale technology is the ideal fit. Right. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Something that requires rural space and yes, it does. [01:02:08] Speaker A: Manufacturing. [01:02:09] Speaker B: The unfortunate thing is the property taxes are low when it comes to what general fund needs. Okay. Okay, so we still go back to that 2.78 mils of property taxes, but you get enough of those in there, it generates enough money to at least offset something. [01:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So then it really matters. It seems like to me who our next economic development director is. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Oh my God, yes, it matters a lot. It matters. It's a great deal. Because we have a lot of potential. Believe it or not, people look at it and say, what y' all got in our parish? Well, I can tell you what we do have. If you go south, you know, and you go up to the Lafayette line, just look on this side and see the development that's happened is done by design. Because our, Our taxes are cheaper, insurance is cheaper. Everything is cheaper on this side of the line. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Yes. [01:03:01] Speaker B: So we want to try. [01:03:01] Speaker A: I know this. [01:03:03] Speaker B: So we want to. We want to try to enhance that growth and. But we got a plan for it and we want to make sure that we do it the right way and hopes that these houses start being built, which they are. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:15] Speaker B: And that helps us out a lot. It helps us out on. On the homestead side of things. When people can build a house and bring their family here, hopefully they, you know, the money stays here. But it takes so much time for that and it's not a lot of money as it relates to a home. But you get enough homes in this other business, it means something. [01:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:35] Speaker B: You know, and the population, obviously is a plus. [01:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [01:03:39] Speaker B: Well, but with population does come services. That's required. [01:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah. And that increases expenses, but you also have revenue that generates from that. Yeah. That's the song that we've been singing is we want to see more people move here. We want to see businesses come here, and we want to incentivize those folks to do it. Because we do think sincerely that Saint Leger Parish is probably one of the better kept secrets in the state of Louisiana. [01:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And we in the rural areas of our parish, we don't have zoning. [01:04:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:13] Speaker B: So I live in the country, So I bought 50 acres of my house is in the middle of. Because I don't want neighbors. I want to be by myself out there. I want to, you know. [01:04:23] Speaker A: Got it. [01:04:23] Speaker B: And I don't want somebody to come tell me, especially the government, tell me what I can do with my land. That's my land. I want to do what I got to do with it. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:30] Speaker B: It has as good and has its bad. Okay. So during the time when we had the solar farm, people complained about not being next to their house. Well, we can't stop. There's no zoning. Well, put up zoning. I said. So now you want zoning, but before you didn't want it. You know, I'm going to come tell you land. So we. What we trying to do now when it comes to some type of land use, i49 has some of it already because we put that in place last year. But that's to protect the i49 corridor. That was a plan been placed for years. Yeah, but residential subdivisions and stuff. Yeah, they have HOAs and stuff. That's great. But that's civil. So when somebody wants to go move into that subdivision, if the HOA says it can't happen, but we can't we can't enforce their HOA rules. We have to enforce the law so they come get a permit. People get mad. I'm sorry, I can't tell them they can't go in your neighborhood because of you HOA rules. So what we are doing is if the HOA in that area wants us to zone that same area. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Oh, it's like residential. [01:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And basically tell them this is the rules and this is what the orders is going to read. So when somebody does come to get a permit, they got to follow these rules. [01:05:47] Speaker A: Got it. [01:05:47] Speaker B: So that has the forcing effect of law. It holds more weight than just a civil case between parties and with neighbors, [01:05:56] Speaker A: which is what an HOA is. Yeah. [01:05:57] Speaker B: So that's what we do now to help these subdivisions where they can maintain their. Their value, which increases the value for the parish. I mean, if the value stays up or goes up, that's more tax money for the parish. Yeah. If we let it go down, that's less money. So we're gonna do whatever we have to do to help them keep their value because it increases our value on tax. [01:06:17] Speaker A: Got it. [01:06:18] Speaker B: So, awesome. There's a lot of things that's happening, but it takes every day to do. [01:06:22] Speaker A: It takes time. [01:06:23] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Well, Jesse, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate your time. [01:06:26] Speaker B: No problem. [01:06:27] Speaker A: Appreciate what you're doing. And so we're looking forward to a. A good future for St. Landry Parish. [01:06:32] Speaker B: We moving. [01:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it, sir.