Livingston Parish: Parish-Wide Millage Meeting

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
First off, I want to thankthe sheriff where the sheriff are going right
that I want things, the shafffor opening up his training facility to us,
and when I went to do themeeting, he called he said,
would you mind doing this at mytraining center? I said absolutely not,
And I appreciate very much a Sheriffard for you opening this up and having
your people have it all ready forus. And then thank you all the

(00:24):
districts that came out. When you'regoing to do a lot of things,
people will say and do a lotof things to you know, when you
go to set your villages. Thepeople that are not part of the districts
that are here tonight, thank youfor coming in. It means something to
you. So we're going to basicallyshare information with you tonight. I'm going

(00:47):
to start off telling you what I'mgoing to do in the Assessor's office and
then we're going to go from there. But before I do, my staff
is setting over here to the left. Y'all look over to the Assessor's office
staff. They're the ones that workhard for you every day and make sure
that things are done right. WhatI'm gonna do, this is gonna be
the worst part of my presentation withmy picture and everything up there. But

(01:10):
if you will go ahead and slideto the next one, David, All
right, some of y'all this isgonna be redundant because you already know you're
the district leaders. And well,I'm not supposed to walk. Come,
I'll go back over here. Mydaddy was a Pentecostal preacher, So we
walk back and forth. And sowhat is the assessor's job? My job
is to discover, list property andplace value on all properties. That's what

(01:34):
the assessor's job is to do.I do not raise or lower taxes.
I do not select taxes, andI do not determine your tax rate.
The assessor's one duty to see thatthe appraised values and their jurisdiction meet the
requirements of the law and administrative rules. That's what my job is. So

(01:55):
you have a situation to where wego out and assess all the property,
and once every four years we're required. It is not a situation where it's
a suggestion from the state or anythinglike that. It is required that we
do a reassessment. So twenty twentyfour is that reassessment. Now some of

(02:16):
y'all have been here that the assessmentsare going to be higher. They're going
to be higher, Okay, butyou also need to realize that you also
have had flood discounts that have beenon your assessments several people. We had
to pull those off this year becausethe Tax Mission said, and we also
had a COVID discount of ten percent, and so that come off. And

(02:39):
so all of the districts that arehere have basically been doing without that money
for all of this time, andso now it's time for them to now
recoup some of that that they havelost over the years. Okay, so
they have been very good. Iwent to several of them and talked because
when the Bloodhead, we were ina situation to where I knew that we

(03:05):
had to give some relief to thepublic, but I also knew that I
had to keep my districts running becauseif I'd have went in like some of
the parishes did and they gave seventyfive percent eighty percent reductions, we'd have
went bankrupt. There would have beenno way for us to keep up,
schools, sheriff's office, anybody thatcouldn't have kept up. So we decided

(03:25):
to give twenty percent over five years. It went a little bit longer than
that, but we gave the reductionsdown for that, and because I felt
like if Ascension Parish in Livingston goteighty percent, then my people deserved the
same thing. So I just hadto stretch it out over a little bit
longer period of time, and ourdistrict were very good about acknowledging that and

(03:46):
trying to reach that goal this year. In the assessments, we're looking at
going up to about nine hundred andtwenty eight million. We're somewhere in the
neighborhood of six hundred million as oftwenty three, so we're picking up a
good bit of revenue, about athirty three to a forty percent overall.
Now when you look at that,taxes can be a little bit more because

(04:09):
the first seventy five thousand is hostedexempt, so you've got to build all
of that in and then you're goingto come up with your tax rates.
Once I reached the assessment as towhere it's supposed to be, and the
parish the reassessment, then the legislativeauditor comes in and resetts the militarates.
They do what you call an adjustment. They adjust them downward, so you

(04:32):
don't take in any more money thanyou took in last year. So once
that happens and the legislative auctor comesin, my job is finished, and
then the legislative alitor's job is finished. So the way it's set up is
you're not supposed to take in anymore money than you took in last year.
They give you a zero net sum. Okay. In the same meeting,

(04:58):
the district can then just side.If they want to roll their militis
forward, you adjust them downward.At the same meeting, you roll them
forward, and they can go anywherefrom that minimum that the legislative ought to
put on all the way up totheir maxim and then each one of the
districts come in and they set theirrate. The assessor does not do that.

(05:18):
The districts do it, nor dothe districts want me to do that.
They want me to be the assessor, and so that's what I do.
So tonight I'm going to talk toyou all about what I'm going to
do in my office, and theneach one of the districts that are here
are going to share with you whatthey plan to do. Last year in
my budget was five point six milliondollars five point sixty nine one. To

(05:40):
be exact, Inflation over the lastfour years has been eighteen percent, So
if we stayed flat and took thesame amount of money as we got last
year, we would be losing eighteenpercent. Buying power give or takes on.
Now it may not be exactly on, but it's going to be give
or take that. So I lookedat my budget and I figured that with

(06:00):
what I need to do because thisyear I want to add more to my
mapping. We've got to buy newcomputers. Health insurance costs are going up.
Just everyday. Expenses are going up, so I have to try to
keep up. I can't stay flat. But in my particular case, I
did not need to go up allthe way to the maximum, because that

(06:21):
would have brought in two point onemillion dollars more into my budget this year
than last year. I didn't needthat much. So I have made the
decision that I'm going to adjust downto what the legislative auditor said, and
then I'm going to raise my millagsback up to the seven point twenty two.
My maximum is eight point five too, so I'm giving back one point

(06:44):
three meals back to the public,which comes in to be roughly about one
point three million dollars. Okay,so I didn't need it all, but
I didn't need some. And that'swhat when I was talking to all the
districts. You need to look atyour budget. You need to what you
need for yours because we've got alot of times. You've got people that
will be on and how many ofy'all have ever seen anybody get on a

(07:08):
computer or anything like that, andthey say all the things that need to
be done in the parish. Well, they say all the stuff that needs
to be done, but I wantyou to look around. You've got probably
ten to twelve to fifteen people thatare here. We've got more than that
get on computer every day. Butwhen it come down to it, and
we said we've got some a meetinghere that you can come in and you

(07:29):
can look and see what's going tohappen with your millages and everything. We've
got a few people that come inand thank y'all very much for coming in,
and the district here appreciate you comingin, so thank y'all so much.
But that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to lower mine to
the seven point two to it,and it's going to allow me, like
I said, to update my mapping, update my flyover. We didn't get
to do a fly over over thelast couple of years. We've got to

(07:51):
do another fly over, so wewant to make sure that we do that.
I don't want to go back towhere we didn't have people on the
road. I don't want to goback to where we don't have the technology,
because technology does make it to whereyou don't have to have as many
employees and you can get the workdone. Okay, many of y'all have
called me over the last week,especially today, asking me questions about what

(08:15):
the assessments are going to do.We are close to reaching the billion dollar
taxable value a billion dollars. WhenI came into office, we were at
one hundred and one million, onehundred and one million, so we have
grown that much. We're growing parishand so we've done our job. My
people have went out and made surethat everything is where it needs to be

(08:37):
and now here we are and allof a sudden we've got a large growth
now. Just so y'all know,I have had real estate agents come in,
I've had appraisers come in, I'vehad a justice come in and I
wanted to make sure my numbers wereright. I didn't want to go in
here and throw a number out thereand all of a sudden somebody come back

(08:58):
and say, well, that's notright. My job is to make sure
that they are fair and equitable.And so to make sure I did that,
I went out and got other peopleto look at it, and they
said, our numbers are right.So we are getting real close to that
billion dollar mark, which is phenomenalfor Livings and Parish because look, twenty
years ago, you'd never thought we'dget close to that. Take a long

(09:20):
time, but we have got itto there. Let me ask y'all a
question. One of the things thatcomes up more often than not is people
ask me about the homestead exemption.How many of y'all are familiar with the
homestead exemption? Okay, just forfun, I'm gonna ask y'all, how

(09:41):
many of you want to raise thehomestead exemption? I will stay all right,
So just raise your hand if raiseIf you want to raise the homestead
exemption, raise your hand. Whatwould you raise it to get? Give
in numbers? So make you giveme number one hundred thousand. That's never

(10:03):
gonna happen, good track. Butone hundred thousand, all right, So
one hundred thousand, I'll split thedifferent way. I'll go one hundred and
twenty five. That's not quite thedifferent, but I'll go one hundred and
twenty five. Here's the question.Be honest with me, because already know
how many of you in here hashouses that are valued more one hundred twenty
five thousand. Congratulations, Your taxesjust went on. You know why because

(10:30):
the legislative ultra says that you haveto take in the same amount of money
as you took in last year.So the more people you take off the
role, you've got to make itup somewhere. So everybody between seventy five
thousand and one dollar up to onehundred and twenty five thousand, they're no
longer to pay it, so yougot to make that money up somewhere,

(10:52):
so then it jumps into that.So if you want to take it up
to two fifty, then you've takeneverybody out from under two fifty, and
now you've got what's left. MaybeI really want to see your taxes go
up another thirty forty percent. That'swhat raising the homestays. So you've got
to be careful when you're saying thatI want to raise the homestead exemption.
You bet you better know what you'retalking about when you do it. I

(11:13):
don't have a problem with it.If you want to go do it legislat
you, maybe that's the ones theygot to do it. But I'm just
telling you what's going to happen.So we're always real careful when people start
talking about it and we want toeducate them, we want you to come
in. The reason we're having thismeeting tonight is so you come in and
ask us questions. So at thispoint, you know what I want to

(11:33):
do. I'm dropping my millage onepoint three meals. I'm putting back into
the parish at one point three onepoint four million dollars. So at this
point I'm going to open up toany questions that anybody has for the assessor.
Don't ask me about the other districts, because the district's going to be
here tonight to just explain what they'regoing to do and what their budget's gonna
be. But anybody have any questionsfor the assessor, Mister Matt Morrison,

(11:58):
what roses is that'll work out frozenassessments. Okay, again, everybody that
turns sixty five, when you freezetheir assessments, then that money is not
Their assessments are not going up anySo if they make less than one hundred
thousand dollars, their assessments are frozen. So you've got to make it up

(12:20):
somewhere. So when you take themoff, somebody else has got to pay
a little bit more. I'll giveyou a great example. One of my
teachers told me this when I firststarted out becoming an assessor. Let's say
we go to eat tonight. There'sme and nine other people and we go
to Ruth Chris's. Okay, atthe end of the night, the bill

(12:41):
comes and it's one hundred dollars.How much does that make each person paying?
Come on, this is this question, they ask you ten. Okay,
But now we've got all the peoplethat are frozen. So we tell
two people to go get on thebus. So now the bill is still
one hundred dollars, but we goteight people paid pay. But then we

(13:03):
come in and we say, well, they fought for our country, so
we give our veterans a reduction.What happens now we put two more people
on the bus. Now you've gotsix people paying one hundred dollars, and
then recently we had the first responderscome on and you put another person on
the bus. Before you know it, you're down to three or four people

(13:26):
that are now paying one hundred dollarbill. And so your bill from being
ten dollars to thirty three dollars,you understand, So the more people you
tend it. I just want y'allto know that I supported the freeze form,
I supported the veterans, and Isupported the First responders. So I'm
farm and I understood what it meantwhen I voted for those. So just
know the more people you take off, the more you're going to have to

(13:50):
pay. If you're the one onthe road. Well, the other other
options that strip you eat lot surpriseor somewhere, well I agree with that,
but what I'm going to tell youis that ten dollars ten people is
not eating a Ruth Christmer for onehundred. So so yeah, that's that's

(14:11):
That's the one thing about party tips. There are other saxes. It's act,
it's a tax fare on the propertythat I live. It's out.
I mean, it's very difficult toget out of it your sales tax buy
the dagest of sets. Well,no, not necessarily, John, I've

(14:33):
got the option of whether or notI want to buy that out. I
don't have to buy that out ofSo if I don't want to go in
there and buy a bag of chips, I don't buy bag of chips,
I don't pay any sales tax.So it's the same thing. You've got
the option to be in and outof either one. So it comes down
to what do you want to howyou want to live your life? Yes,

(14:54):
follow up, yes, sir,So the elderly both said bosing assessment,
Well, the experience of increase intheir taxes. They will not receive
an increase in any assessment, butif a district passes another tax, or
if the experience increase, they couldexperience an increase in taxes, but not

(15:18):
assessments. See, the only thingthat's frozen is your assessment. So if
a district rolls milgians back to themaximum, or if a district passes another
tax, then that tax has passedon to those people their assessment don't change.
Could be possible someone who has asenassessment actually has a redopt in their
taxes this year, if you reduceyour mailage and these other districts experienced,

(15:46):
well, the way it is,Mickey, is if everybody lowered their assessments
to what the legislative ultra said,nobody would have an increase at all.
Yeah, that's the whole thing.That's why the Legislative Arty come in and
puts that on there. They putyou at a zero sum increase, so
you wouldn't have any increase except forthe growth. Now, the growth is

(16:07):
not included into a reassessment. That'sjust stuff that was added on in twenty
four we put that on. Butyeah, theoretically you wouldn't have any So
what happens is at that point,the district's vote on what they're going to
do, and then we add themall up. We send them over to
have the tax notice to sent out, and then they add up all the
taxing rates and that's what becomes yourtax building. But if they put them

(16:30):
as no increase or they put themback to the lower mount of what the
alleged they've alty said, then youwon't have an increase. But they're not
keeping up with inflation. At thatpoint, they're not able to do anything
new at all they every year itcomes in and they say, because we

(16:52):
have growth every year, but youonly have reassessment every four years, so
even in this year you still havegrowth. But a reassessment is exactly what
it says is it's a reassessment ofeverything that was already here. If it
wasn't here this year, then itcan't be reassessed. It's just put on
its growth. But anything that washere before we reassess it once every four

(17:15):
years. Okay, five miles Familyand Las successor and every edition it is
there's two sources of revenue. Thenew revenue become there. Whatever we do
it we reassessments. Thats RELGI bringnew avenue in the voting for mesages and

(17:36):
I stayed in the last years.Happy anybody departments, you come on the
work here a year area a yearthis year there Additionally, and as a
past player, Pitsern, I wishfirst of all before we vote in villagers
in a year when it reassessment,heurs that we can get the numbers before

(17:57):
can't vote on them in You know, we have a provision being wrote you
back. You are y'all rolling back, but I don't have to know you
know how much more I am payingfor these know, this is I'm calling
corn an Avenue and take impact foryou know, we're kind of doing it.
We're voting for were in my housewhat a p fall well and I

(18:21):
know that's a fact out there beforethat in the year when greassessment to her
kind of had the votes or themules will be measure the gods. Uh.
And then in terms of you know, because there's people that get the
special increase in their own sentients ofmy humanises w y as, I hope

(18:45):
I would hides. I believe itso was Horner and emergency our relation of
privacies said he miss the last.They get that, but there are also
benefishery of the residiveness they are comingfrom the grid session you know of and
it leaves a taxpayer that isn't oneof those groups you know, you know,

(19:06):
convenings pain more bailable and so ofthese taxpayers I mean inflations and Brady
higher polls. Everybody gonna hire asales tact. That's the possible. And
now we're drunk it in the productthat now I'm I'm okay with people charge,
but I understand everyone's every district costis going up in the last four
years. It's the last for assuh put out ability to just I just

(19:32):
encourage you to take a hard look. It's that if I'm me is looking
up right now and I don't likeit, s uh and and I just
look hard for us and ask thisyear's particularly is crazy. We're here,
we're president pursus a lasting hell.It might be a good guys to really

(19:53):
take a hard looking. Can Inot know what the bob of islands?
That that can? That's only aside that you look at your bucket and
say, well what I need?You could bof the great quickens. N
do we get nine this elation andunderstand where we're hitting. Afterwards, Dale

(20:18):
said something a few minutes ago.He asked, does this happened every year?
If you don't look at the villagesevery year? Because once every four
years the districts are required by lawto go back to their maximum or they
lose their maximum. Look, noone is going we can play games if
you want to. Nobody's going togive up their maximum village. They're just
not going to in case something happens, They're not going to do it.

(20:41):
We tried to pass the constitutional law. I think it was two years ago
that said the districts could lower theirmillages every year for the rest of your
life if they wanted to, butthey always had that ability to go back
to the maximum if they needed to. Because what happens is revironment every four
years, they've got to go backto the maximum. So they take a

(21:03):
windfall no matter what. And sothat's what happens. And so we try
to pass it and fail pretty prettydecently. But if we ever bring it
back, you're all going to needto see it. Look, I'm doing
everything I can in my office forthe transparency. That's what people are asking
for. They won't transparency, andso we're about to put some dollars into

(21:26):
advertising to let people know you needto come in. Our books don't open
until August fifteenth. We're open now. I've told my staff the books are
open as tomorrow morning. You cango online and look at your assessment.
You can come in and look atyour assessment, or you can call and
look at your assessment. But Ithink it's important that people come in so

(21:48):
they're not shocked. Because one ofthe things that people always say is why
are the tax bills always come outaround November? November fifteenth, what the
law says. You know, we'vegot certain processes we've got to go through,
and then the books are open.Then you go through this process,
and then you've got to get themprinted, and by the time you get
them out it's right around Christmas.So we're letting you know here June the

(22:10):
eleventh, that you need to callit in and check your assessments. And
I will tell you this. Look, I've had long conversations today and through
the last few weeks, and everything but a lot of them have been
today, and these districts really aretrying to look at their budgets and they're

(22:30):
trying to make sure that they cando what's right by the parish. I
don't think you have people out therejust looking to take just excess money and
go put it into a reserve firm. They're wanting to make sure that when
they get down to the bottom ofthe day, they're having to set their
budgets or to talk about their budgetstoday. For a budget that starts January
the first, and then you've gota year before that comes in, so

(22:52):
that's eighteen months that they got tomake sure that their insurance don't go up
sheriff. If your insurance went up, that you've become sheriff back in twenty
twelve as it went up a littlebit. Anybody else at school boards your
insurance went up as the cost ofdoing business went up. And I understand
what people say. They said,well, the working person, the people

(23:15):
of the parish, they just dowithout. Well you can, but sometimes
it causes you to fall behind andyou don't have the technology, you don't
have the things that are necessary tomake sure that if an accident happens.
We had an accident just day onSouth Sid's Central Road. It was mighty
nice to see that. They saidthat the first respinders showed up there within

(23:38):
five minutes and they was able toget everybody out of the car before they
called them fire. That's nice.What if that would have been a thirty
minute response instead of a five minutewe could have a larger tragedy. So
when you're looking at it, youcan look at it through the lens that
we're talking about, because look,I'm a physical conservative. I'm extremely concerned,

(24:00):
but I also know that I haveto get certain things done in my
parish. I've got to have thepeople that can get out there and work,
and you also got to pay peopleenough to keep them there. It's
nothing worse than when I lose somebodybecause they had a job that paid them
more. And I've spent five yearstraining them and getting them ready to go,

(24:21):
and they're up and running the speedand they say, from my family,
I've got to go do this.It's nothing worse than that. There's
nothing worse also than somebody who youkeep around and they're not doing the things
that are necessary. Okay, sowe have to weigh it out. We've

(24:41):
got to make sure that we're doingthe best of our ability to make sure.
And look, I work with reallygood people in this parish. I
work with really good people in thisparish. They stay in touch with each
other, they called each other.We're trying to do the right thing.
Now. I know that there aresome keyboard cowboys that get out there and
they start talking about how everybody isthe worst thing that's ever come along.

(25:03):
They are the absolute worst to evercome just because you get into elected office,
all of a sudden, that makesyou the worst person around. I
go to church with people that twoweeks before the election, we're going to
lunch, and the day that somethinghappens, somebody comes out against me,
I'm the worst thing to live.It happens. But that being said,

(25:25):
I'll work with some really good peoplethat are conscientious and they're trying to do
the right thing. And at thispoint, I am going to who's here
representing the parish? All right,all of y'all, who's gonna spend let
me resay that who's gonna speak forthe parish tonight? All right? I'm

(25:47):
gonna ask all y'all to stay seateduntil we needed somebody why on Thursday night.
So Thursday night at the council meeting, this will be on the agenda,

(26:10):
So at that point discussion will beheard and the councilmen will make their
their position on. So if ifyou are interested in our few milages,
then Thursday night would be at atime that you would be at the council
chambers and in presenture it'll be opento the public. So they tell us

(26:36):
four that we yeah, we havefour on on the the agenda, which
is the parish. They call itthe alimony inside and alm on the outside.
So that's I believe that's a constitutionalguarantee. So people do not vote
on that that milage that's provided forthe government, and that's not what's your

(27:00):
parish government. That's for all yourunfunded mandates. That's the Coiner corner,
that's the the DA's office, thejudge's office. So it's a different marriage.
Yeah, has nothing to do withmarriage or the lack of marriage and
that. And then we have ahealth unit tax which was voted down by

(27:23):
the public and it does expire Decemberthirty first of twenty four, so that
will be back on the ballot,but it will be discussed because the assessment
for twenty four does affect this particularmillage as well. And then we have

(27:44):
the parish road milage which will bediscussed. So those are the items that
will be on the agenda for Thursdaynight. So if you have anything to
say that would be well, youcan say it tonight, but I mean
that we'll be voted on on Thursday. Any other counselman have any that's the

(28:07):
first time I heard again that's athat's you don't have to have here.
Uh, it won't be a publichere in on Thursday, Okay, Okay,
So it'll be introduce okay, soto be introduced and then then I'll
come back. Yeah, yeah,so little. It has to be thirty

(28:33):
days published and officials that I neverpassed, you know that, right,
That's good. I feel it's kindof responsible as a counselman and as our
other counselman to hear that that wehad the group have some boys here tonight.

(28:59):
We don't want to have an appearancethat we're just trying to not be
part of the meeting. That's definitelynot the case. So some of the
pulse I will say, of thiscouncil has always been and I'm kind of
speaking for him, but not speakingfor him, just saying this. The
pulse of the council is that wehave a very strong desire as the parish

(29:22):
president, to work hand in handtogether to help our parents move forward.
I had a meeting with the sheriffdust the other day, and it is
very refreshing from a lifelong resident ofthis parish that's been involved, been to

(29:44):
the res, been to the fires, done the dirty work, fault the
battles, to be able to seewhere we really have an opportunity to go.
I keep telling everybody, please justlook at the glass half hold farce.
You give us the opportunity. Thisis the sixth month of our turn.

(30:06):
So the post of this council isto give back as much as we
humanly possibly can to what we referto as the rooftops of this parish.
A sales tax comes in, peoplecome in, they stop off the inner
state, they spend their money.We take their money, we put it
to work for you and for yourroads. The rooftops of the parish,

(30:27):
as mister Taylor referred to, Ourparish has grown, the sus value has
gotten a lot better. So weare trying to do our best to keep
up with the growth. But it'sa very serious struggle. So the best
thing that's happened so far, frommy standpoint, is the road bond that

(30:48):
was put out on the road fund. Sales tax was created, that's paid
off. That's helped our parish alot from a cash flow standpoint. And
then the second part of that isjust watching this councilor do the things that
they do and trying to give backto the rooftops. And when I say
give back to the rooftops, Imean the constituents of this parish have footed

(31:11):
the bill on your tax rolls basedon a millage. The bulk of the
parish government that's where we've gotten ourrevenue. The parish has grown. We're
starting to get things like bass Probe, We're starting to get things like Judy
Crassey. We're starting to get thingslike the industrial park and Walker. We've

(31:33):
got an airport coming and hopefully we'llbring in some more commercial development that will
help us pay the bill so wecan continue to reduce that milage that's on
the backs of the people of thisparish. And when you open your door,
when I say it's a rooftop,it's a door in your house and
your tax roof I like to sayit very simple. Everybody's doing the best

(31:59):
that they can and pay their electricbill right now. So we need to
give back as much as we canto help you pay that electric bill.
So our parish and our council asa whole has committed to doing just that.
We've been looking very hard at allthe villages across the board. What's
good for is what's you know needsto be looked at, and we're holding

(32:22):
people accountable. It's no I don'tknow if anybody's here with the library or
not, but it's no hiding agendafrom Rickey Gods standpoint that I need.
I feel in my heart after lookingat from fifteen to now that we need
to look at moving that back alittle bit. I do not, and
this Council does not wish to cutany services. We don't want to go

(32:49):
backwards. But we want the peoplein these districts, in these areas to
have the funds that they need,the funds that they need. And that's
it, because we need to giveas much as we can back because these
people are trying to pay their taxreal their electric bill. So we're going

(33:12):
to go back to the Health Unit, and right now the Healthy Unit is
going to be back up on theagenda to read you. And this was
set at two point five. Italways carried a balance over, so we're
going to roll that back and putit back on the agenda for two point
zero. We hadn't done that becausewe had to get it out there.

(33:32):
But in all reality, after weget the assessment, part one point eighty
eight is what collects us the samerevenue. So this counsel, as I
hope and as the pulse of thecouncilor as I feel, will roll it
back to the one point eight eightand that's where it will stay. It
will be voted on in the election, and I'm looking for a seventy percent

(33:53):
vote and support it because we needto know that our restaurants are safe and
people need the Health Department they cango. We're gonna educate everybody exactly what
the Health Department does. We're puttingit on the ballot in Novembers of everybody.
It's a good turnout. We wanteverybody to have a voice, and
it don't so don't cost us verymuch at all, if anything. So

(34:16):
one of the things that I'm gonnaask you to do is take it another
step further and move it down atone point seven zis because they have a
surflus that's gonna help us with animalcontrol. If they need to collect one
point two million to survive, andwe set it at one point seventy five

(34:37):
and they only collect one point oneand they're sharp by one hundred thousand,
they go, don't do just likeeverybody else does. They're gonna go over
there to their savings account. They'regonna get that one hundred thousand and pay
their bills right because they got asurplus. We do not want the Health
Department to collect no more than theyneed, So we want to give back

(35:01):
right now is set it two pointfive, and my desire and hopes is
we'll move it back to one pointseventy five at a minimum one point eight
eight. So we're gonna roll thatback. We're also going to look at
the library about being able to scalethat back a little bit. Not to
cut services. We'll make sure that'sclear. We're not here to cut services.

(35:24):
I promise you we're not here tocut services. But we're not here
to carry three hundred thousand dollars overevery year and put in the bank.
Anybody wants to see it, andwe're happy to call me. So we're
gonna look at other incidents the gravitydrainage districts. Man, we need dravty
drainage districts. We need to fundthem. We'd be nice to give them

(35:45):
more money. But we're getting ofwe're getting a service for what we're paying,
and we're staying ahead of our drainage, and we're doing a master plan,
and we're doing all of these otherthings to to use our money wisely
in all these districts as well asthe parish. So I have to say

(36:06):
all of that simply to say thatwe are going to do everything that we
need be possible as a counsel togive as much money as we possibly can
back to the rooftops of the peoplethis parish in store. And we are
challenging just like Jeff said, we'rechallenging ever ented it and holding them accountable

(36:27):
to say we need this money.Why do you need that money? Convincing
because my responsibility as a counselor isto the people of this parish and make
sure that they are getting what theyneed for the littlest amount of money out
of your pocket and that's my pockettoo that we can't So the more sales

(36:50):
tax goes up, and the moreour sales base goes up, the more
commercial growth we get, et cetera, and all those things. Hopefully we
will continue to see this trend ofgetting off of the rooftops of this pairs.
So look at the glass half forJust look at the glass halfle.
That's all I ask. Simply lookat the glass halfle, and we're gonna

(37:10):
put as much money as we canto help you pay that back for bill.
Thank you where Okay, So theparish council is saying that they're going
to be looking at it, andI really believe that what if I heard
right, you're going to introduce ittomorrow night, on Thursday night, and

(37:32):
then you've got to advertise it fora certain amount of time. So don't
forget that. You can't just doit two weeks now. You've got to
advertise it for like thirty days.So that's a second group that is looking
at Lord and the villages. It'simportant also, and this is again I'm
going to reiterate what my job is. My job is to make sure that

(37:55):
I put the property where it's supposedto be. They do not come into
my office and suggest, hey,Jeff, what if you only put it
on for twenty five percent of bath. They tell me that I have to
make it fair and equable. Andin the same stroke they come in as
the legislative aulitra and they will adjustthe millage is down to where no more

(38:16):
money is taken. So at thatpoint I'm out of the equation. But
a lot of times people come inin November into my office. Some of
you may have been by there inNovember, and you've got people lined up
in the lobby out the door,and they're wanting to know why their taxes
are too high. That's why we'rehaving the meeting tonight because I don't know

(38:37):
what your budget is. I've triedto explain them over the last twenty four
years as to why the taxes onwhat they are, but that's really not
my job. My job is toexplain Jeff Taylor the assessor's budget. And
so thank you parish counselor for comingin. I know that a couple of

(38:58):
y'all are needing to leave and goto another meeting, So thank y'all so
much for tuming in. At thispoint, I'm gonna have chrief ord if
you will come in, you will, Yeah, you didn't know if you
need right for it. So far, I keep saying I'm the camera,
so you know down here or upthere. That's good, You're good,

(39:21):
Uh so uh, Jason Ard Andmy duties responsibility is also to do with
taxes, but I don't want toassess your property. I just collect your
taxes. So that's one of myduties. The other is the keeper of
the jail. I'm responsible to makingsure that the jail is safe and secure.

(39:42):
That's the other responsibility. And alsothe safety of you and your family,
my family as well. Uh.It has been a tremendous challenge in
this parish because we are still thefast fastest growing parish in the state.
Uh. And let me tell youyou're talking about the gas prices. We
know, h I have almost twohundred vehicles and it's jack and it is
going up. About three or fouryears ago we were able to start getting

(40:06):
into the broker and broken broken somegas because we knew it was going to
go up, and wound up sayingabout three or four hundred thousand dollars.
And it was a great decision.We were constantly looking at those things.
You can hear this from some ofour fire chiefs. I know everything is
going up. I mean, look, we used to be we're very proud

(40:27):
of we have tahoes here. Tahoesare now pricing themselves out the market and
you can't keep up. So youknow, you look at our fleet.
Now we have all kinds of dodgers, forwards or whatever we can get.
And COVID kind of changed that andthey pretty much if y'all remember trying to
get a vehicle near COVID, youpretty much went whatever was on a lot,

(40:50):
and it was never anything cheap either. And so we ventured off into
a contract with our enterprise to startlesonbiggles, to try to say aid money.
When I got into this sheriff deal, it was all great coming from
a chief criminal deputy, and itturned into a Basically, it's a business.
I'm more of an administrative sheriff thana criminal sheriff, and it's a

(41:12):
lot of business stuff, and you'reconstantly trying to save money and peach pennies
and steal try to give the serviceto the people. We have Baton rouge
on one side of me, andI have a sension on the other side
of it. They don't like tosay they're lower than us, but they're
on the bottom side over here.But they pay their deputies a lot more
than we do, and it's toughkeeping good trained people here, and so

(41:35):
it's a constant battle with that.And we are budgets about forty one meter
eighty five percent of my budgets filledon salaries, and that's the base of
what it is. And then wehave equipment and we do everything we can
to try to get the most bangfor the buck. And I'm telling you
just to tell you probably I'm gonnaguess that it's maybe about four years ago

(41:59):
probably the top those were around thatforty mark four or five years about forty
thousand, seventy thousand dollars today seventythousand. And it's just it's incredible.
And I can't even imagine what it'slike being fire chief in those trucks.
I really can. And so thoseare the kind of things that we do.

(42:19):
I mean, I don't know,and I mean we've looked at our
budget. I don't know if Icannot not roll forward, I just don't
know if I can survive. Andlook what's going on in a country.
If you don't think the border isa problem, watch my follow my page.
I mean, look the last timeI checked, everybody heard of the
last time we had a meth labin Livingston Parish. We don't have to
more. You just get straight fromthe border and package already really good,

(42:43):
nice package and deals just coming rightacross the border every time you want to.
It's affecting us. We're seeing it. We're making big cases here and
so let's a it's a huge demandand it's really tough to keep up with
a fast growing parrish. And solook, I want to do all I
can to save as much money asI can, and I really take pride.
Now I've had a queen on itto twelve years. I've been your
chef, and we pinch pennies andwe look at every single thing. We

(43:06):
take advice for people. We tryto be as transparent as possible. I
know a lot of people think thatI made money off of inmates in the
jail. I don't make no money. I actually put about two or three
bion I was into that jail andit's a tough thing. But now at
jails, nobody wants to talk aboutit. But it's got lots to do
with your quality of life. IfI don't have the attention center, I
don't know where to put them.You've got to have a good student center

(43:28):
and do that. I just metwith Ricky Goff about trying to do what
we can and get prisoners back hereto save the parish money. We're doing
everything we can, but look intoday's world with the demand on law enforcement,
I just don't know if I cansurvive not rolling my millage as far
as I don't know how I'm goingto do it. If we look at
everything that we can to try todo that. So again, I mean,

(43:52):
I mean, who else is goingout there to broke her gas to
try to save a dollar or two. But it works. We've done everything
we can to try to think thatway. But I mean, I feel
for you fire chiefs too, becausey'all are like manly those those equipment.
The upfit is just unbelievable. Matterof fact, we'll start seeing some of
our vehicles of bar lights. Weused to not have bar lights and went

(44:14):
back to bar lights. The reasonis you can actually use them. So
we have done a lot in thelast couple of years trying to go back
to some of the ways we usedto do things and just looking at what
was the most efficient way to dosomething to save more money. And so
that's that's kind of where I'm an. I'll entertain any questions as you might
have for me anybody when we askedonce I knew John's and I have a

(44:38):
questioned, how the what? Yeah'sjust hope that fixs us. It's nice
and it would be nice and goingto jail and I have to cover our
stuff on the talk. But thanky'all for doing that. Absolutely, I
would say that we learned it wasI there's not always somebody making money out

(45:04):
of there. There's really not,So we appreciate you saying that. Bocal.
Well, you know a lot ofpeople don't understand a lot of that
stuff. Like you know, wewe have money that comes through that jail.
We get money for doc inmates.Uh, but we're also very cautious.

(45:28):
So I have to have a certainamounts to be able to pay my
salaries for my employees or run thatjail. But sometimes whenever I'm shipping people
out of parish, I also makeroom on my de OC side. So
if you all losing so in mine. So we're trying to kind of share
that hurt to make sure we werun that as fair as we can.
Ricky and I talked about that theother day, So hopefully we got something
to come down and pipe to helpwith that. Dale you had a question

(45:52):
as to make it. I'm notat home sales teams of rock. I

(46:15):
don't think you never get big enough. I mean, look, they share,
we share an employee Falry, andall this guy does, all he
does all day long is try tofind out what inmate might be hung up
in the system. Can we gethim the court faster, can he get
him through the digital system, Canwe get him out faster. So we
have a deput is dedicated just todo that, to try to get those

(46:37):
inmates in and out. You'll besurprised, I mean people who are sitting
there. We used to find thisthat wanted to leap guilty like any of
my time, and it would takeyou know, ninety days to turn around
sentence the guy. Even when weget thirty days, that's the waste of
our money or time credit for timeserved. So we that was way back
when I don't want how many yearsago, we decided, you know,

(46:59):
we need to we need to payattention to this. So we created that
that position for that and it's actuallypaid off a lot. So right now
we have rough what been eighty ishless than that when we got sixty inmates
out of Paris, about sixty inmatesout of Paris, which is pretty good.
We've been seeing up to one hundredand fifty one. Thing that Yeah,

(47:21):
still you have the problem with that. You heard we live he worked
at government in the school at AriasCouncil Ken and he with a private company
maybe a crazy day or rock home. Really that's gonna be very d I

(47:45):
mean that's like the schools like that'swhy we don't have a work release.
Yeah, it worked to private companiestried it and it didn't work, and
they they wound up getting both ofthem, well one of them sold another
one and hold. It's just it'sa it's a really tough business. Yeah,

(48:05):
I would like it's what jealous concern. I would certainly like to thankful
people of this parish for providing uswith the sea tax and fund of deal.
I don't be embarrass you don't havethat that red in present number one
problem. I mean, if youdon't have buddies for me, because if
that's time to say, if youtake care of the first over anybody else.

(48:30):
So you know we're talking about taxesto night. You know, certainly
the people of his parish stand up, are you know the leaders of the
past, you know for in sightof thinking about that because anything huge or
lead on our business and have afundies for You're correct, I've seen the

(48:53):
hurts. Yeah, any other questionsjust you be termed of Well, if
someone would do the parents should wantedto understand these there the one of the
understand of both. I love whatis less play ball, but it's under
prom competing budget is closed just asimple source of revenue spending trip, so

(49:17):
we can kind of understand what's commanding, what's going to happen where you cooks
money, because you know, isthere anyone can do that where all these
physics goods is us understanding, butit's really not understanding what's coming in and
what's spent. You know, becausea little of freasonable that helps us.
I must rather pay a local taxthan any other tax up because you know,

(49:40):
I'll do what I know if youhave people I can watch and people
where you can have a kind ofthem and a distance either way for us
to get a view your budgets ina simple by that non lusty water with
the combat or we can understand whatcomes be it goes. That's the word
said. I would like to seethat too. Can's tough on me to

(50:05):
read a budget and called Jimmy andI don't want to quite understand this because
it could be confusing. Jamie,you had something you want to add in,
So to answer that question, we'rerequired to do it that way.
That's that's their rules. We haveto follow it. I would you can
come to our office anytime and andsit down and go through it. But
we're required to do it that way, and it makes sense to us,

(50:29):
but it's not user friendly. No, it don't make a lot of sense
to me. If I tell youwhat, we'll talk about this this that's
kind of a good idea. Maybethere's a way we can put something out
and be a little more transparent,a little more simplified. And we'll look
at that and said or something thatyou do. You know that it comes
to perscription want And I don't knowanything about the next little baby. I

(51:04):
wonder if because you were friendly,notice where here here here the middle friend
here for the next So we kindof other one. You know the boats
that body were open are aware?Yeah, I go ahead, job.

(51:30):
I'll tell you this. There's onlyso much room you've got on a tax
bill. We've got forty six taxingdistricts in this parish, and so when
you go to putting every one ofthem, you have to kind of condense
it a little bit because it justgoes through the roof with the costs and
everything. But I will tell youthis that you can come in and see

(51:51):
these offices. I've called them,asked them about budgets. They tell me,
I mean that all you got todo is ask them, they'll tell
you what it is. Now.I would that we wouldn't get five hundred
people coming in and doing public recordsrequest over and over because what happens a
lot of times when that happened isit really slows you down in your workday

(52:12):
and you're stopping to have to dothis. But as far as the budget,
just so you know, we sharea lot of things. One of
the things that we've worked on,the mapping system that I have, I
have given it to everyone in theparish. I don't turn around and charge
that I took that out of myown budget, so they would not have
to do that. I'm sharing anit guy right now with the parish because

(52:36):
I said, I really don't needa full time person, but I do
need somebody that can come over andmake sure my printers are working in my
keyboards and everything like that. Andthe parish president's office said, yeah,
we can help you with that.So I know we're reaching out. Jamie
does a lot of my accounting inthe office. He does all my accounting
in the office, so we're alreadysharing people trying to get things like that

(53:00):
done and the budgets that come outand everything. She will show this is
your expenditures on this, this,and this. I mean, anytime you
want to see that, you're morethan welcome to come in and see ours.
I will tell you this. There'stwo things I want to add to
before the sheriff says now. Firstof all, I think that some of
the parish councilor when they were electedback in October November, when they started

(53:23):
doing a lot of their work checkingto see where a lot of the funds
were, like a lot of timesthey would look and see that a parish
wide tax. They would see it, and their first reaction, just like
the public, was is all thismoney is going to the parish. The

(53:44):
parish council gets a very small amountof money, a very small amount of
money. They have been extremely goodevery year that I've been assessor of trying
to go in and help with them. Every year they have done that.
And when you look at the smallall about they get, it really is
something to watch them do with whatthey got. Because when they got in

(54:06):
there I had heard someone said,man, we got all this money,
we got this parish wide, andthen all of a sudden they realized,
wait, that really don't come tous, No, that parish wide means
that it goes to the assessor's office, is voted on or as passed parish
wide. Everybody in a parish paysthat one. Sheriff's something. Everybody in
a parish pays that one, butit's called parish wide, and we try
to distinguish some of it. Butthe parish government has been done a real

(54:29):
good job of trying to make surethat they give back the sheriff and I
and there may be in some otherhere in the so if I miss you,
I apologize. But the last coupleof years we have received a Certificate
of Excellence in Finance award. That'sa pretty big deal. That's a national

(54:50):
award. That means that we arescrubbing, we're doing everything that we possibly
can to do more with little,and we've been able to do that.
And so I wanted to compliment himon the fact that he's received it now
two or three two years, threeyears, twenty five five years. Okay,

(55:12):
that's a pretty good deal. Youwant to keep behind that war and
saying yeah, absolutely, one hundredpercent, that's a fact. But I
also want to say one other thing. If you have something that happens at
your house. Somebody's breaking into yourhouse may ask you something. You want
it to be a fifteen minute responseor do you want to be an hour.

(55:36):
That's what it boils down to.If you don't have the money to
pay deputies and get them on thestreets and everything, the response time is
going to be a lot less.If your house fetches on fire, you
want that fire department there in fourminutes, five minutes, or you want
them to be there in an hour. An hour, you're gone. You
don't have anything. So when you'reasking people to do things, make sure
that I don't know where mister Golfwent, but he said minutes. Look

(56:00):
at that last half full, becausethey really are trying to get things taken
care of. Scheff, thank youfor coming up and sharing with everybody tonight.
He shared with you what his budgetbasic budgets are, and he's also
shared with you what he's going totry to do with his militis. Natures
has stimed up as a school board. They just went out for a once
in sales tax to try to paytheir people. I will tell you before

(56:23):
they walk up here that their totalmillage is going to bring them somewhere in
the neighborhood of about four or fivemillion dollars more. This year, they
needed twenty four million. That shouldpretty much tell you what they got to
do with their militis. That shouldhave tell you pretty much that if they

(56:43):
needed twenty four and they're getting five, that they're still short. I know
that they went out and paid fora study, and I don't know who
paid for it. But I alwaysget this wrong because either lead Frog or
Lean Frog, Lean Lean Frog andLean Frog come in and said, this
is what you can do to betterhelp you. And so they took some
of that information and tried to helpout with someone's salaries. But guess what,

(57:07):
they're still short. And if youdon't believe that, go ask a
sension what'sy're paying? Go ask batMoods what's there paying? Go ask all
of them what's a paying. Theworst thing that you can have is to
train somebody and somebody tell you goout and get some experience and then come
back, and they come out andget experience out here. And then when
we get them good and trained andthey're taking over the classrooms and everything,

(57:29):
they move to another area because they'remaking ten fifteen to twenty thousand dollars more
year. That's what they're up against. So I'm gonna turn it over to
y'all. Y'all come out and tellwhat you're gonna do with you go just
and tell a little bit about yourbudget. Now, this is somebody that's
coming up here like she's a church. She's coming up there. She wants
to be up on top. Sothank you. Somebody introduce yourself to having

(57:52):
it. I'm actually I'm the assistantbusiness manager for the school board living for
Parish School where it currently collects ninedifferent taxes that are collected our behalf.
Four of these are parish wide villagesand five are collected for individual districts.
I'm going to go into a littlemore detail about each one. The first

(58:15):
is a seven We call it ourseven field maintenance. It's a seven meal
tax. It's collected for the maintenanceon buildings, equipment, vehicles, and
the upkeep of all the grails inour district. The funding is distributed across
all the districts proportionally on a forpupil basis. This tax is estimated next
year to generate six and a halfmillion dollars. In twenty three twenty four,

(58:38):
we estimate that that will have costus over ten million dollars, so
six and a half next year we'vealready spent ten this year. The second
of our parish wide millages is afive meal Construction. This is collected for
construction related expenditures, including land acquisitions. This funding is distributed across all the
districts proportioned on a p pupal basis, is estimated to generate four and a

(59:02):
half billion dollars next year. Thisyear will we expect to exceed fourteen million
in that punch. When either ofthese funds are in a deficit, we've
used our second sales tax to thesededicated for maintenance and facilities to transfer to
cover that deficit. Our third andfourth villages that we collect are also parish

(59:23):
wide villages and they are collected intracks in our general fund. The two
villages are a three point twenty nineMILI and a seven point one to eight
MILI. These two taxes is thethird largest source of revenue for our general
fund. It is given to supportour to support our schools. The school

(59:43):
board is the largest employer in theparish and our general fund is responsible for
salaries and benefits of over thirty eighthundred employees. The cost of our monthly
payroll for salaries and benefits alone isapproximately twenty million dollars. We recently contracted
with Lean for All Consultants to performa compensation analysis and an organizational review for
the school board. Our compensation analysisshowed that we run with a very lean

(01:00:06):
and underpaid staff. Our board tooka first step in addressing these issues with
a four million dollar initiative for thetwenty four to twenty five school year in
levelizing our salary schedules. Our hopeis that as additional revenue sources become available,
that we're able to address some ofthe other issues that've brought to our
attention, such as mister Taylor justis alluded to our teachers. Just like

(01:00:29):
scheerguards officers are leaving to go toother districts, our teachers want to go
to as cincieness Keasbeader as well,where they can make more money. We
understand the difficulties that people are facingin the recent years of price increases.
We feel them too. I haveone of examples is the fuel he reluded
to fuel In twenty twenty one,we spent six hundred and eighty thousand dollars

(01:00:52):
on fuel. Our buses run aboutmillion and a half miles a year.
This year were expected to exceed onepoint three million dollars in fuel. That's
one hundred percent increase since twenty twentyone. So those are the four pairs
by villages that we have that weare that we intend to roll forward and

(01:01:15):
so that we can, you know, use best use of funds. Our
remaining five taxes are specific by district. These were voted on by the voters
for each individual district and these fundsare used to pay on the bonds for
these districts. These villages are setannually at the amount only needed to cover
the district's bond principle and interest payments. These bonds were used to build facilities

(01:01:38):
such as Live and High School,Walker High School, and the new facilities
in Denom Springs, so we won'tcollect any more than what is needed on
those to pay those bonds and interests. Any questions about any of the school
Board's villages, thank you. Afterall the noise that was made when the

(01:02:19):
tax came about for the school board, I thought we would have a few
more questions about it because these peopleeducate on your children, and they do
a good job of doing that.So thank you very much for coming in
now. I think the lean forall abile, I think it really pointed

(01:02:39):
out because look, there's so muchdistrust in government. It's just a lot
of mistrust. And the people thatshowed up here tonight, you're wanting to
get answers, and we understand thatthat we want to give it to you.
One of the things I was goingto tell you a few minutes ago
is we prout our assessments online severalyears ago. And the reason we did

(01:03:02):
that is so you could go onand look at your assessment, but you
could also look at everybody else's assessment, and then you could come in there
and show because I never want theappearance of anybody thinking that they get a
good deal because they know Jeff Tayloror they don't know Jeff Taylor, or
anything like that. That's not whatI'm in this for. In fact,

(01:03:24):
I've been in office for less thana year and the new assessments come out
and my mother called me and shesaid, I like that other guy a
lot better than you, so ourdeal. When I first come in,
I made sure that everybody in myfamily, my two brothers, my sisters,
my mom and dad, my wife'smom and dad. I made sure

(01:03:45):
that all were looked at. Theassessments were looked at you, because if
I'm an assessmin, I better beright at home. And then we went
in and got our employees and madesure that they were correct, because if
they're not correct, why are wegoing to send them out there to make
sure that you're correct? And thenwe went in and got some elective officials.
Okay, some of your elected officialshave actually seen our people at your

(01:04:09):
house. So when you come in, we're going to make sure that if
you're voting on a mill if,we're going to make sure it's right.
But we put the assessments online andthen we'll walk you through. Mister Goff,
if you want to look out withwe'll walk you through it. Because
it's really good to see this.And people always say, well, I
don't want to see anything because Idon't want to get my neighbor in trouble.

(01:04:31):
Are you paying? You want tobe okay with somebody not paying their
fair share and you're paying more thanyour fair share. I'm not. So
we're going to put it out there. And then we got it to where
we can put all your tax noticesonline. You go in there and look
at them, and so you canask all of the questions, the hard
questions that need to be asked.And so I want to think that we

(01:04:56):
are a leader in that. Lookwe did several of several years ago,
we were held up as an officeof ways not to do things, and
then now we're showed and we goto conferences and everything. It's the way
to do things. That's a pridemoment. And I know we're not supposed
to be over and perhap, butI'm proud of the fact that my office
works that hard to make sure thatthat's good. So compliment to y'all.

(01:05:17):
Thank y'all for what y'all do.I'm going to now ask the library.
I said that they could come inafterwards. Mister Golf touched on the library
a little bit. But I'm goingto ask y'all to come up and y'all
want both want a microphone or y'allwant to come up here? How y'all
want to do it? Okay,got one here, got one here?

(01:05:39):
That way? Kay? Who's yousaid? Little everybody? My name is
David Gray. I'm a public Informationofficer for the Wits Fairs Library. I'm
with Michelle Paris. This is thedirector of the Little Saffairs Library. And
yeah, so we're just here.We found out this a couple of weeks
ago. We just wanted to justpresent some information. I would like to
say that before I get started,that we are having a series of community

(01:06:02):
meetings over the next month, startingthis Thursday and then running through August fifth.
We'll have six meetings, one ineach branch. Two we'll be at
the Dinner Branch because that's our biggestbranch. And two of those meetings are
going to be live stream because theseare going to be sort of just like
I said, town hall meetings,very informal, just there to answer questions
that people might have. Well,we'll have a brief palerploy presentation just to

(01:06:25):
kind of show the history of thelibrary, where we've been, and then
just kind of what we're hoping todouse Right now. We're in the middle
of developing our next strategic plan.It's one of those documents that entities do
every few years just to just kindof make sure you're up to day and
trying to meet the new challenges thatyou have coming ahead. So I just
wanted to get that little plug inand we have half flyers right there,

(01:06:46):
and then on our Facebook page,we just did a post about it.
So that'll be pined at the topof the Facebook page. If you want
to see where the meetings are.They'll be from five thirty to seven pm
each time, so make sure thatpeople can come after work. And like
I said, we're going to bewe're gonna have library officials they have just
to answer any questions that people mighthave. But so our village as a

(01:07:08):
ten mill property tax. It wasjust renewed in November. It was first
voted on in nice ninety five.It's been news three times. And this
is the libraries only source of revenue. There is no there. We get
some and some federal brant money,by the vast majority of the libraries revenue

(01:07:30):
comes from this property tax. Ithink I said that it was passing nineteen
ninety five, and this is lastyear. In twenty twenty three it brought
in six point seven and this yearwas six point nine, or it's projected
to be. This is this ontwenty twenty four to six point nine,
And so I know some the assessorthey said they're going you know, he

(01:07:51):
mister Jeff said that they're going toowell back. We we can say right
now we are going to we're notgoing to take the full maximum. We
don't know gets what we're going totake though. That is, so that's
what we'll be discussed more than thesemeetings because we all know that most affairs
has grown over the last we'll sincethis Melaga passed over the last twenty years.

(01:08:13):
It's been grown on more than fiftythousand people since then, and everyone's
costs are going up. So ifwe were to collect like we suggest that
earlier, if you collect the ifyou're collecting the same dollar amount, you
were actually having less spending power.So we right now to get what we
got this year would be seven pointfive mils. But for example, this

(01:08:35):
year, our health insurance, ourbenefits excuse me, benefits for employees went
up two hundred and eighty six thousanddollars this year long right, there were
huge increase in our health insurance becauseyou know, studied everybody else about twenty
five percent just in health insurance lastyear. So you will be so to

(01:08:57):
say that we have a savings atthe end of the year is not correct
with our previous administration, they werevery frugal and we are appreciate that,
and I'm reaping the benefits of thatbecause now that our buildings are getting older,
I'm starting to see the maintenance cost. So they got to see a
little bit of that excess. Idon't get to see now. I'm having

(01:09:18):
to dip into that. Those thingsthat might have gone maybe a three hundred
thousand dollars windfall is now costing mebecause I'm having to pay for roof replacements
that have tripled in cost. Andthe audience spring Hill has to have a
retaining wall built behind it because it'sthe soil is eroding and we don't want

(01:09:40):
to slab to crack. Lord knowswhat happens if that had. You know
how much that's going to cost IfI have to fix a slab for a
whole library. So those things aregoing to increase. I'm not going to
see a three hundred thousand dollars windfallat when this budget is done for this
year, because we just had towork roof on the administration building that was

(01:10:01):
sixty thousands, sixty thousand dollars.If when I have to replace the roof
for the livingson branch, the mainbranch. That's going to cost spect one
hundred thousand dollars. So our hostjust in keeping those buildings up. And
this is a mistake that people makewhen they talk about our milage. Our

(01:10:23):
millage is for the upkeep, maintenance, and improvements of the library. There
was a bond for the buildings andthat should be paid off this year.
The bond was passing in two thousandand three. Will that's either paid off
now or it will be paid offthis year. So we heard that a
lot when the village discussion was goingon, when our millage was being devoted
on that that was not what thatwas for. Yes, the bond was

(01:10:45):
for building. The millage is formaintaining, improving, and increasing the services
of the library. So I justyou know, I want y'all to know
that, and I want everyone toknow that we employed all our employees.
Most of our employees we employed ninetyfive percent of our employees live in this
parish, grow up in this parish, the work in this parish, and

(01:11:08):
they also deserve a pay increase.We haven't been able to look at our
salaries in eight years because we've beenholding steady our millage and the amount we
bring in. We might fluctuate twohundred thousand dollars i'd say in the last
eight years with those but that's notgoing to happen this year. And we

(01:11:29):
need to be able to keep thosepeople that we are training because we're also
having the same problems. We're losingthe people that come in with degrees that
we train and they go to EDRbecause they can pay more money. Ascension
pays more money than we do.And then they also have civil service in
EVR, so that's something that wedon't have that we can provide. So

(01:11:49):
we are also fighting for those employees. We're also fighting to have just skilled
workers. I mean, I knowy'all all know what that's like. And
if we can't adjust those salaries andwe're going to continue to lose those skiel
workers. Is there any questions thatthat anybody has a couple more points I'm

(01:12:09):
we're elect to point out just withthe with the revenue of the state library
doesn't report a year, just ofall the libraries in the state, just
so people can kind of have thatbasic information and comparatively, we the lifts
of Paris Library. This might bein the ninth most populated parish has the
sixteenth most revenue of all the systemsin the state. So our local revenue

(01:12:34):
per cabinet is just over forty dollars. The state average is sixty two.
So I mean, there we are. We feel we are doing more than
less, and a lot of theparishes that are. I mean, obviously
we're never going to have like VRhas. Their budget was forty nine.
You know that would be nice.But but but some of the payers of
Saint John leave the Baptists. Theyhave to have more than us ascension,

(01:13:00):
she said they had. They havemore revenue than us. So we are
doing more than less and more withless, and just some of the numbers
because I know, before I startedworking at the library, I rarely used
the library. I'm gonna be honest. I rarely used it. I use
it for the Wi Fi. Ididn't do checkouts or anything, but I
would go there. I would useit for the free Wi Fi. But
last year we had over five hundredthousand checkouts. That was an esamated the

(01:13:25):
economic return of eight point three millionwe had Southeastern the Southeastern Business Research Center
did economic impact study for us thisyear. I had no cost so no
one says that we paid them toget what we wanted. It's something that
they provide to the entities in theirfive parish service area. And eight point
three million just on checkouts alone thatpeople bedefit because like I said, we

(01:13:46):
had over five hundred thousand checkouts lastyear we had and last year we had
forty eight thousand people attend the program, which I don't know if any of
y'all have ever made out to anyof our programs book Festival. This year,
we had twenty three hundred people attendComic Con which was in February.
We had twenty two hundred people attendlast Summer Reading where Summer Reading it is

(01:14:10):
our most crazy time of the year. Today I was at the Dinnim Branch
or something called the La Snake Idthat is a Springfield a Springfield organization that
they basically had a penny zoo ofsnakes, sad very safe conservation, and

(01:14:30):
we had there was close to twohundred and fifty people in the Dinim Branch
today. We easily had we hadanother one. We easily could have doubled
that if we had a bigger space, or we did two shows, because
I mean they were our Facebook face. I'll put a picture of today.
I mean, if you ever beento the Dinner branch, that line was
wrapping from the meeting room all theway out to the entrance in the through

(01:14:54):
the glass hallway. That was partof the dinner renovation to the circulation desk.
So I mean people were packed forthat. And we have over three
hundred programs in June and July long, so it's going to kind of be
like that all summer. I mean, it's just madness. And last year,
for some reason, we had thirteenthousand people attend and that was back
to the pre COVID numbers that we'rejust starting to get back from that.
So this year, I'm going tobet that we're going to beat that number

(01:15:16):
this year thirteen thousand just in Juneand July. So there are people who
who really and I would ard youif you've never gone to any of these
events to go just see how Imean much fun they are. Maybe you
see kids penny snakes. I wasin touch of one of them, but
I mean there was a lot ofpeople love them and it was fun to

(01:15:38):
watch. And this year, youknow, we're already playing for our next
book. Festival. These things keepgetting bigger and bigger, like the comic
on comic on Yeat and more expensive. But yeah, so we're just trying
to say that we are being anyservice to the parish. But we also
do want to work with the parishleaders because we do want to make sure

(01:15:59):
that we're good stewards of public funds, and that means we know, not
taking the full tend this year andnow I guess we don't know what it
will be, but we do knowit will be less than full ten.
So yeah, anybody has been questions. I know I kind of ran wrong
for a minute, but well,bud all so in October and we have

(01:16:23):
an instead of the final budgets inOctober. I'm sorry, stop November actually
when we do, Yeah, Novemberis our last meeting. It's in November,
so I start working on it andwe do the last one in November.
I did this summer. We willdo the millage meeting this and that
will be this summer where we willwe discussed what millage really well, yeah,

(01:16:46):
that will be probably the September meeting. When we do that, right
before the meeting, then the morewill vote on our millage. Then we
send it over to the assessor's officeand to the legislator auditor's office. But
the full budget is a November that'swhen I present the budget. Between twenty
five will be to the board,and we do have copies of that,

(01:17:10):
and I try to keep it notsimple, but our line items. We
line item everything out so you knowexactly how much we're spending on book that's
how much we're spending on insurance,how much we spend on this. And
they're not easy to read. They'renot your household budgets. And I hate
when I hear that, because noneof our budgets are our household budgets.
You can't run a government agency ona household budget. It just doesn't work

(01:17:34):
that way. And when you can'tbring in any other source of revenue but
which you get from your taxes,you can't make up a shortfall. And
that's what we try to do.Because we can't take out loans, we
can't do any of those things.So if I have to replace a roof
and I don't have the money forit, if I haven't saved that money

(01:17:54):
from the year before or two orthree years before, knowing that that's happening,
I can't go out and take aloan for that. I can't ask
my friend who's a roofer to cutme a deal. You know. We
can't do those things like you cando with your own household budget. So
it's a totally different organ it's anorganism, I guess I should say.
Whatever we do want everybody to knowis that we do our best we can

(01:18:15):
to make sure that we stay withinbudget. We don't, you know,
but we have to see growth.This parish has to see growth, whether
it's I mean, I live here, I grew up here, my parents
are, my brother's are here.You have to see some growth. You
have to move forward because if youdon't, even if you're a state agency,
you become stagnant and then they don'tknow what you're for. Who are

(01:18:35):
for like to help unit. Nobodyknew that they do restaurant reviews and things
like that to make sure your restaurantsare to speed. Nobody knew that,
and they voted against it. Soyou have to realize that the people that
are running these organizations are doing thebest they can to get everything out there.
And we have done that when wedid the village meetings, ask people

(01:18:59):
to come out and talk to usabout the village before because there was so
much misinformation. I've never once hadninety million dollars I wish I did.
I don't, but so I wouldlike for people to come out and ask
us questions. We've been out.We're doing these for the strategic plan.
It's important that you know what wewant to do, what we want,
and we've gotten feedback from some ofthe public. They really want to see

(01:19:21):
our services grow, but not everybodyis together on that. One thing we
do know is we'd like to seea new bookmobile. Our bookmobil makes forty
thots of months, and that's notincluding all of the school things they do,
all of the extra purticular things likegoing to fairs and we've gone to
the bumbo poot golf and all thosethings. We need another bookmobile, which

(01:19:47):
we turned down things because we can'tgo. Just to give you an idea
of how much things have increased incosts. When we bought the first bookmobile,
it was like one hundred and seventyfive thousand dollars. The one I'm
looking at right now three and fiftythousand, and we bought that one in
twenty seventeen. So then you know, cross is just ridiculous. So you

(01:20:11):
know, just know that we're doingthe best we can, but we also
want to provide those services and moveforward anyway no one wants. Okay,
we've got how many more entities dowe have? I know, I got

(01:20:34):
the fire departments over here, andthen I've got JT the mayor of Literiston.
You're good, You're right at thispoint, I'm bringing forward the fire
districts. You can do it together, or you can do it separate us.
Up to y'all, whichever way youwant to. Godfather, you make
the decision on how y'all want todo it. Oh hey, I'm gonna

(01:21:00):
tell y'all someone I know these guys. I know, I know these two.
I know these two guys really well. I know I know the time
and the effort that they put in. Uh. I've had uh uh Joe
Ksrast you called me on many occasionstalking about the money that uh that they
get and what they need uh.Down in the Springfield area, Brian Drew

(01:21:21):
is doing the f every He's doingabsolutely the best he can. And I
would tell you that right now theyhave two trucks that are not operation and
they're pulling things all together just totry to make it happen. So not
always, can you just say acrossthe board, we need to just lower
cause sometimes they're just trying to catchup for things in the past. So
which way y'all will go? Penderstona good person. I think that all

(01:21:45):
Love said. I'm about Brian Durryand the fire chief in Springfield and Lives
Fairs Fire District too. Uh.We have optating a roll to ten meals.
That's which we can only operate outand we are gonna proceed back to
ten meal. Uh. We've operatedin the deficiency since the float of sixteen.
Like Jeff just said, you know, we have a a fire engine

(01:22:05):
one of our bumpers sound of service. It takes over thirty thousand dollars to
make the repair it does. Itdoesn't make sense to repair a truck that
was built in nineteen ninety nine atthis point, all right, and then
we have a tanker truck because wedon't have good fire understand there, we
have to bring our water with us. Were one of my twenty five hundred
gallon tankers to the tankers run itout and to make it even harder.

(01:22:27):
It's a standard I mean people,you're gonna do well. A lot of
those you're able to print of theroom. People may age three weeks still
drive, but the youngsters can't.So we can't can't even have the trucks
to make it to the scene evenif we were to change the tank.
So we have to replace that truck. Also, the cost of doing business,
and all of us see it inour hogs. You know, the
pairs councils mentioned that. Everybody's mentioningit. I'll just make a quick little

(01:22:49):
mention of it. You know,a fire truck whatever we bought that truck
I just talked about. I wasthere to firefomt We bought it. We
paid one hundred and twenty thousand dollarspct brand new in nineteen ninety nine.
All right, Today that's just acommercial cab truck, like a Coca Cola
Tite trucks, one of those.That's a five hundred thousand dollars truck.
Today most of us are driving arounda custom cab truck which has rollover safety

(01:23:13):
features. That's really where you wantyour firefighters in. That's between six hundred
and a million dollars for that truck. So and give you a little respective.
We do the Fire's Poker Round everyyear. Some of you who's heard
of it, some here. We'rethere this past weekend. You know,
my volunteers were about six months preparingto put that event on so we can

(01:23:34):
make money to purchase fire trucks.And we just celebrated like we are on
the top of the world right nowbecause we did. We bought a rescue
truck. It is beautiful, it'sgot ten thousand miles on it. It's
huge. One hundred and thirty thousanddollars for that truck. It's twenty years
old. With y'all, we hadto celebrate purchasing a twenty year old fire

(01:23:56):
truck. Is that the world we'resupposed to be end right now? Where's
all the priorities lending and laying itat in the world with what's the most
important if the fire department. Ifwe can't get in work and maintain all
the requirements that are needed to satisfythe property insurance asociations and Louisiana to fire
answer trading, it's going to goover well. Now after insurance rating to

(01:24:18):
go up, you pay more moneyto hear an insurance agent and look all
right, Adians are very nice people. They live really well too. All
right, I'd rather you keep thatmoney local, where you can see where
your dollars are, you know,Thank you gentlemen over here you mentioned earlier.
Locally. I'm a fire district too. Everybody in my fire district's money

(01:24:39):
it is at the fire stations.You can see it anytime you want to
come through. Some of us canmake you scratch your head, like,
wow, you're really still using thatold truck. So we have a nineteen
eighty five model truck'staling service nineteen eightyfive. Matter of fact, I'm the
nineteen eighty three my own aerial platformstilling service. Those trusts, most people
don't use them anymore. They're tooold. We have to put a choice

(01:25:02):
outfitting firefighter coat and paints. That'sfive thousand dollars for one firefighter. The
SCBA is that the air bottles wewear to go into the fires. That's
nine thousand dollars for one. Everyfire engine is required to have four,
all right, I have seven engines. It's twenty eight of those. I

(01:25:25):
have four service trucks. Four morelowers for fire and service trucks nine thousand
per so it goes the list goeson and on and on. So you
got it. I can justify it, and I can say the fire departments,
and I know I've communicated with allthe fire districts today, and I'll
have one chief sit here talking aminute, and I don't know if we

(01:25:45):
do. Guys is gonna come speakin another minute for fire stret four.
But we all everybody's gonna roll.There's up. And I go back to
something too. There's a lot ofpayroll stuff been discussed. Well, when
you have volunteers selling chickens, doingall the raffles and doing these things to
help pay the bills, we haven'teven got to pay, all right,
that's not even our problem. Ourproblem is keeping up to day equipment and

(01:26:10):
serviceable to protect our citizens. That'sour priority, all right. So that's
that's why we're rolling ours up.If anybody's got any questions for me,
nothing, that's easy. Who nicequestions, all the thank you? Yes,
you may tell me about you youfeeling tried to get it, try
to do some bunch. Yes.So my fire station, our primary station

(01:26:34):
is Springfield and Terry Street. That'sour headquarters. So I mentioned the age
of the Buildings earlier, the Buildingsbuilding in nineteen seventy one. It's our
primary fire station. You should havebeen in there, Darren Ida with us.
I thought we were about to geta new station, all right.
The building was moving. Literally wehad water blowing through the walls through from

(01:26:55):
the front to the back. Theguys were in there with shop backs and
squeezes, right, it was,and I didn't want to admit to them,
but this first time, I wasreally concerned that we were about to
lose the building. All right,been there for every hurricane since July ninety
nine. I'm in chief, Iknow. Jeffrey said, you're the oldest
serving for a little official elected.Okay, elected you because only elected.

(01:27:17):
I was suckered you were elected,right, So but anyway, yeah,
the buildings, we're trying to getinto a new building right now. You
know there's and we did. Wegot some moneys from the front of the
state. We're very fortunate Figure Sectionare passed some funding down to us.
Unfortunately, I'm a very naive person. I'm not a contractor. I have
cows, I know firefighter. Ididn't know how much it cost to build

(01:27:42):
a fire station, so I didn'task for enough money. So you know,
a million dollars isn't enough to builda fire station. I'll find it
out. So yeah, we're we'resitting there trying to figure out how we're
going to do this. We hadto cancel the one project we were working
on because we couldn't afford it,and they were trying to move it to
another to fit the same agenda wewere trying to get to get a office
with the original plans. Just notenough money. But all you volunteer departments,

(01:28:03):
all your fire departments across the parish, we're equally as broken. We
all have the same expenses. Someyou don't hear from a minute's got even
more expenses for payroll and such asthat. But I didn't want to go.
I was gonna be along with yeah, we're gonna yeah, just wait
till I gets up here. Butyeah, so yeah, anybody think were
questions, not gonna have an answerfrom me if I kept me. After

(01:28:26):
we're talking. I love talking aboutthe fire service. That's been my life
within thirty one years at it.So thank you for your support. Ball
talk where you were going to talkabout smaller it's like a road source and
you're trying to bring in Swart yourfire and batties, trying to be created.
Yeah, so something. You know. I've been Jeff's office a number
of times over the years. I'veburned his phone down many of days trying

(01:28:47):
to get creative. I'm telling youright now, I am absolutely hate as
the room taxes, just sizing withevery five of them. My being.
I wish to ever established a taxbase for the parish. Years ago.
We would have come up with abetter plan, but this is what we
all kind of grew into the rockand kind of stuck with it. Sales

(01:29:09):
tax is more fair because everybody likessomebody mentioned somebody past the three was paying
for it, especially to people comingin to dine and enjoy our stores,
people coming married and enjoy the riversand the restaurants day, would they would
help pay to not have another avalorumtax. I kind of got a little

(01:29:29):
creative and have approached the parish counciland then under the former council was about
to come back to dis council.Is a fire impact fee. That way,
it doesn't affect those of us thatlive here now, it affects those
developers coming into development. And that'sgoing to keep some more funding to your
fire service. Okay, it's onetime feed formula based. I think that's
the most fair way I can doit. And it's because we're going to

(01:29:53):
be a residential rate if we havea commercial rate, and I have to
add the industrial rate because I wasn'tthinking about that when I rooted up.
But but that way, if Iliving up Bryan Stootball staying I got a
file larks square foot building and hecomes up with Godfather's warehouse over here,
he has ten thousand square foot warehouse. We shouldn't pay the same amount of
money for an impact. So that'swhy we do a formula based on that,

(01:30:14):
and that's why we're going to beapproaching the council with trying to get
keep put through. I guess sir, yeah, absolutely, fen say so
or I think I think it's themost favorite thing to do for those of
us live here. We're paying.We've we've heard that tonight, right,
we're already paying. So every oneof us have got a roofed out.

(01:30:35):
We're playing our part. We shouldn't. But with the cost of going up
instead of me coming after another aworld tax, I'm not even gonna try
because I've watched everybody else going throughwith sales tax the impact. He is
kind of where I feel my confidencewould be, so anybody else. Thank

(01:30:57):
you, sir, Because Rawski Iam the fire chief in the fire protection
Mistry five. And as Brian wassaying that it's almost impossible for us to
reduce our milagy, we've been playingcatch ups since the flood. We operated
at the two hundred thousand dollars deficitlast year. We're projected to do the
same thing this year. The moneythat we had allocated for new fire trucks

(01:31:21):
is now going into our budget tomaintain what we've got. We've got substantial
growth in our district, but withthat growth comes a lot of work and
a lot of the speech. Whenwe started in eighty six, we were
running three hundred calls a year.We now own four thousand calls a year.

(01:31:41):
Impossible to do with the same moneythat we're bringing in now. The
fuel costs, the expenses and distouching on what Brian said about the user
fig the impact fee. When somebodyclears a large spot of land and they're
going to clear it of the acres, our liabilities starts the men. They

(01:32:02):
put a bulldozer on that piece ofproperty. The school board doesn't get impacted
right away the sewer system, butthe fire department is out there. We're
running calls. This year four hada guy got stuck underneath the bulldozer.
They had to go out there.We don't receive revenue off of that property
for years. So the people whoare paying the taxes today that are paying

(01:32:27):
us to protect them, we're usingtheir money to go out there and take
care of other things that bring inzero revenue. So you know we're going
we'rey ten point one four. Iknow they call it a rollback and roll
forward. We're not going up onour millage, but we're going to stay
at the maximum we can claim becauseour expension is just like you, sheriff,

(01:32:50):
Our salaries are there. My newesttruck is thirteen years old. We
just bought a nineteen year old truckout of Newark where and I drove up
that, we drove it back andit was forty thousand dollars. My oldest
trucks are nineteen eighty nine minus.And you know we still have a in
service because as you were saying,the tankers some places don't have hidings.

(01:33:15):
We got to bring the water tothem. You know, I have full
time mechanics to do nothing to workon these old trucks because we can't afford
to buy We've taken money. Ifwe put aside to buy new trucks and
put it in and operating budget andtrust we at the ten point one four
it's going to be years before weget back to where we were for the

(01:33:35):
flood and then COVID and then IDA, and you know, to say it's
a wind fall is a misleading number. It's not a wind fall. It's
trying to just get back to thelevel of service that we had to supply.
You don't want me to show uptwenty minutes later. You want me

(01:33:57):
to show up two minutes earlier.You know, you don't want us to
come to the car racks said tothe medical and it's not just firefighting anymore.
We've become the first line medical treatmentout there for anybody that gets hurt,
it gets cut, it has astroke, the overdoses, you know.
So you know I asked for y'allsupport to help us just to maintain.

(01:34:23):
The extra money will not let usreally move forward. It's just gonna
help us to maintain the services thatwe've all come to know and expect.
And uh, Robert, I'm gonnaturn it over to you, but yourself,
try not to be as long windedas my friend back there with you.
Now, I can't promise the samefor him. That's why I gotta

(01:34:44):
hurt. That says that, Ijust feel you're gonna you're gonna hit your
high spots yet here you want meto hold the way for you, so
you can read that over the firstunterviewton. Okay, all right, name
is Robert, who got to thecharity of the district for just got some
things high about District four. Wecover about two hundred and twenty five square
miles of livings and parish, approximatelysixty thousand citizens, it says over here,

(01:35:09):
roughly forty three percent of the parishpopulations in our district. We currently
have fifty three full town employees,seventeen part time employees, and thirty volunteers.
We've been in existence since nineteen seventyfive and have had prevendous growth within
our Within our district, let's see, right now, we have fourteen firefighters

(01:35:36):
on at seven stations, twenty fourto seven. Our goal is to get
to ten fire stations with a minimumof two firefighters that are manned twenty four
to seven. So that's our goal. Some of our shrub let's say our
five stations. Original stations are betweentwenty five and fifty years old, so

(01:36:00):
some of these states were built innineteen seventy five. We're still using we
needed. Part of our plan isto renovate those far those full time in
firefighters and and add on the livingquarters forum, which will require once we
do that, eleven additional fire fulltime firefighters. We currently have sixty three
apparatus. Of the ten first outendes we have, six of them are

(01:36:27):
between fifteen and thirty years old them, so that's our first out engines.
Well, they got a lot onhere that we purchase four fully equipped firefight
engines into twenty fifteen for four hundredand forty thousand dollars each. Today those
are just shy of a million dollarsfor a first out engine. So the

(01:36:48):
starting stylary for firefighter operator is aboutthirty four thousand, five hundred dollars a
year and working two thousand, ninehundred and twelve hours per year. So
firefighters work on a twelve hour shift. They don't work forty hour shifts like
the rest of us. So justto kind of give you all some numbers,

(01:37:11):
our Burget budget right now is abouteight point seven billion total. Out
of that, full point one issalaries, one point four is payroll expenses,
Social Security, Medicare, and retirement, and about it. It costs
us about a billion dollars and otherbenefits. You know. The other chiefs
talked about what it costs a proximatelytwelve to fifteen thousand dollars to outfit a

(01:37:34):
firefighter just one between the SCBA,your healing, your bunker, year,
your boots, everything, you're lookingat close to fifteen thousand dollars to make
sure that firefighter comes home. Andthat's basically what we want to make sure
we do. District four. Ihate to steal the chiefs under the District

(01:37:56):
forty about seven thousand calls last year. There's a little psy four thousands,
but no, yeah, they dohave a number. So through May we
did three thy twenty seven calls andI just had another date. As of
today, we've done another two hundredand twenty calls since the end of May,

(01:38:17):
So in just over a few dayswe've done eight hundred and forty four
pre plans and four hundred and twentynine inspections since January, So that's another
thing that we have. We havea fire Prevention Bureau with the District four,
which is basically the state Fire MarshalArm. We have an arm fire

(01:38:40):
Bureau that goes out and does theseinspections and does these pre plans on commercial
buildings, so we're not depending onthese fire marshal will come in. So
I got any questions from anybody,so go fire? Have you ever?
Okay? So we have two well, we have actually had a in twenty

(01:39:01):
two we passed another referentum for additionalfifteen emails and that's what we have paid.
We're usual to pay. We hiredtwenty three new firefighters in twenty two
twenty three, so basically that forme and that fifteen meals is covering those
souths. So I don't know.We have our we're going to be Next

(01:39:26):
Monday is our meeting we will advertisefor our public caring and then we will
July will be the meeting that willdiscuss our villagers. We've already started our
advertisement, so that'll be in theJuly meeting. Must be one of those
bring up and those are broad in. Yes, let's see unto six as

(01:39:49):
the fire versus you know, it'searly chime. Call trust your lives eight
minutes, eight minutes to say thatthey read any of us. That's amazing.

(01:40:11):
Uh so thin. You can doa lot of wall side find the
fires before a uh two hundred eightor uh land fire. Uh back here
it was at uh marsh ras atype way. Uh. I all all
that. Uh A lot of people. There are a lot of old districts

(01:40:32):
and cause that. And that's that'sthe one thing about all of us.
We all work well together. Anytimethey call it will respond. I kind
of get tired of looking at'emsometimes see any other questions. Thank we

(01:40:53):
got one more coming up, AndI wanna say one more thing about mister
Druie. I'm gonna talk about anyof the other fire departments, but you
shared with me today and this iswhat I was trying to get to you.
His firement right now. They don'thave bunks. They stay there all
night to protect you, and they'resleeping in recliners. They're sleeping in recliners.

(01:41:17):
And that's the ones that are thereto answer the call when the call
is made they jump out of thatrecliner and they jump on the truck and
they take off. So thank y'allfor what y'all did. Well, thank
you so much for much we got. I think the one more and that's

(01:41:40):
Mayor Taylor from the town of Livingston. Some of y'all look at him,
and y'all realize that me and himare close to being twins. I mean,
when you look right at us,you see how the height and everything
is right dead on. So thisis my nephew, and so he's doing
a wonderful job for us out ofLivingston. So jt and tell people when

(01:42:01):
they come to the office. Assomebody comes in and says I want to
talk to Jonathan, I just tellthem to send them to the back because
that's my family. The only onesthat do me is that. But I
mean, I wasn't gonna talk andI lead over untold buddy something, but
I wasn't gonna say anything. Townliving said, we're a little different.
It's gonna take a little bit differentapproach. Our budgets around five point four

(01:42:23):
million. Our adalorum tax is onlyeighty thousand a year. That's all we
can is four pointy seven seven billsso yes, we're going to go back
for that four point seven seven Thatdoesn't even pay for one employee. We
got twenty five employees. A lotof our revenues just comes from utilities and
sales tax and also share fart.How was some majority of this paid for

(01:42:48):
Jason Golf your phone? How howis the majority of this paid for well,
Jack gober One? So I knewhow it was faidful. That's why
I wanted to ask him that.So all I hear there's a lot of

(01:43:08):
perception from people. And my dadalways says a quote. He says,
if you can't raise the voice,I mean, if you can't raise a
hand to heeld, don't raise thevoice to criticize. So I appreciate the
people that are here that don't justget on Facebook and say, you know,
I was talking about my buddy Paulearlier. He said they pulled the
bleachers out because they heard three hundredpeople were going to be here. This

(01:43:29):
happens every time in the Tennalymics.They want to get on Facebook, and
I know, you know, we'vegot Action seventeen here and Ken might put
on Facebook what I'm saying right now. But sometimes I think it needs to
be said, and I'll be theone to say it. And maybe I'm
just as young buck and I'm naiveand I shouldn't say these things. But
a lot of times, you know, they want to get on Facebook and

(01:43:49):
they want to criticize and say onthe couch. But I appreciate I'm going
to listen to people that come andshow up and talk to us and say,
hey, we want to see this, we want to see that,
because there's kind of conversation and youknow, I think when you come,
you learn some things and you realizeschool Board they were bashed on social media.
They have all this extra money wherethey bring in lead for all can

(01:44:11):
find out. Man, they aredoing a great job with their money.
And there's like Uncle Jeff said,there is a lot of mistrust with government.
I don't I think this thing righthere. Social media is the reason
why, because it's a lot easierto set on Facebook and Twitter and gripe
and complain and not come to ameeting and show up and come with facts.

(01:44:32):
And I have some facts for you. That's why I wanted to get
up just real quick. So whenI knew that I was having this meeting,
I'm a numbers guy. I don'tlike to I don't like to criticize
any entities unless I find out I'mgonna go talk to them on when they
hear from them, and I wantto see what I can do to help.
So I pulled this loaf of gunreader here and the twenty twenty three

(01:44:54):
leaves in a tax commission. Okay, twenty twenty three louis in a tax
commission. So this kind of showsoverall to me what Livings and Parish is
doing with their money compared to otherparishes. So Livingston Parish we generated last
year seventy seven million, six hundredand seventy four thousand dollars. Okay.
So I took our population and comparedit to all the parishes so us as

(01:45:16):
a whole, that's the money thatwas generated from all of our villages in
this parish last year. That averagesout to five hundred and forty dollars per
citizen. Okay, five hundred andforty dollars per citizen. That's all the
villagers, all the other districts,Walker Walker School District, them Springs Live,
of all the parishes, the sheriff'soffice hours, everybody's okay, so

(01:45:42):
Ascension one thousand, six hundred andfifty one dollars excuse me per citizen.
Saint Tammany three hundred and ninety fivedollars per citizen, west beat Rouge eight
hundred and eighty two dollars per citizen. Ever built three thousand, six hundred
and twelve dollars per citizen, repegsOnenty twenty two. It goes on and
on. So to me, likeI said, I'm a numbers guy,

(01:46:05):
I wanted to go look at itbefore I came to this meeting night,
and I wasn't gonna say anything.But everybody, I know most of these
people that got up and talked,and I met with them, and I
know them personally, and I knowthey're not just sticking money in their pocket
like they're accused of sometimes on socialmedia and elected leaders that we're taking all
this extra money. I think we'vegot a great people in this parish,

(01:46:25):
great leaders. So that's the onlyreason I want to get them and talk.
Let's take a little bit of naturewhere he's something something, So now
you pretty much know what's going onto the parish. The people that showed
up tonight to talk about their look. There are several of them called me

(01:46:49):
that they could not be here.They had meetings tonight and a lot of
things going on. But we appreciateyou coming out to the General Poe,
thank y'all. Thank you for comingout and being able to allow us to
speak to you and to bring forththe things that are important. It's important

(01:47:11):
to know what each one of thesedistricts are going to do. They try
to tell you what they're thinking.We've got some that say they're going to
lower, some that says they can't. I will tell you this that we
have done the best job we knowto do by law to put the assessments
when they're supposed to be Anything fromthere after that, it just comes down

(01:47:33):
to what the districts are going tocharge. But as you heard them speak
tonight, there's a lot of themthat need the money. And John I
wanted that piece of paper. Youjust had to show that we're spending five
hundred dollars per citizens and you've gotassension spending one point, I mean one

(01:47:57):
six hundred dollars is Phenomenalcus all theMillagians have put together. Oh no,
they've got more. They've got alot of it. But it shows you
what we're able to do with fivehundred dollars a third of the money.

(01:48:18):
We're able to do this. Wehave a top ten school system. We've
got a first rate sheriff's office.We've got a good parish council that tries
to do everything they can. We'vegot firemen sleeping in recliners just to make
sure that everything is there taking careof for you. I am proud to
be from Livingston Parish. I don'tshy away from it. I will put

(01:48:40):
Livingston Parish up against anybody in thestate. I do all the time when
I go somewhere and i'm speaking,Livingston Parish is first. So I can
assure you that these people that arehaving to come back to you every four
years and ask you for your vote, they're not out there to try to
make you mad. They're out thereto try to do the best job they
possibly can. And I applaudge andfor the public that shows up tonight,

(01:49:01):
thank you, thank you, thankyou, And for the ones that are
watching us over for the ones thatare watching us own mister Chapman's podcast,
and the ones over here to actuallyuse thank you for putting this out so
people can see it. So wecan get the word out to more and

(01:49:23):
more people. And how many ofy'all would like to see this done again,
how many of y'all like the transparencyof it. We're going to try
to do it more and hopefully thenext time when we tell them that,
look, I don't know if we'regoing to get five people here or if
we're going to get five hundred,but you might want to make room.
And then you get here and we'vegot ten people to show up, but

(01:49:45):
I guarantee you in November, somebodybring me a doctor pepper or cookie in
it about November, because they're gonnabe minded up outside my office because they're
gonna conveniently forget that we had ameeting, and we're gonna remind them that
we have meeting for you to comein and look. So you need to
go online. You need to lookat your assessments starting now. Come into

(01:50:06):
our office. Call us. Weare here. David is going to David
and Tim are going to be stayup here and if you want to look
and see what your assessment is goingto be before you leave, go ahead
and look at it tonight. Butwe're here to take care of you if
you have any questions, please giveus a call. I'll give you my

(01:50:26):
seldom. My office number is twotwo five six eight six seven two seven
eight For all you out at thepublic, give us a call and we
will do whatever we can to helpyou because we want to see Livingston Parish
thrive. That's our goal, thatis our mission, and we are going
to accomplish our mission. Thank y'allvery much for coming to Night

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Livingston Parish: Parish-Wide Millage Meeting

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