ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / December 30, 1999

LAPLACE – The St. John Parish Council played Santa Claus Tuesday andgave Parish President-elect Nickie Monica a 28 percent pay raise even before he has been sworn into office.

Out-going councilman Perry Bailey introduced a resolution that would give the parish president a raise based on the average of the salaries of the sheriff, assessor and clerk of court, a formula used in several other parishes. These three salaries are set by the state and decided by the sizeof the parish. In St. John Parish, the sheriff earns $77,000, the assessor$75,000 and the clerk of court $60,000.

This means Monica’s new salary will be $70,667 when he takes office on Jan. 10. Out-going parish president Arnold Labat makes $55,000 a year.To keep things in perspective, when the parish charter was drawn up in 1984, the parish president received a salary of $32,000.

Bailey qualified his resolution saying that to attract qualified people into parish government, the council must make the pay attractive.

Two council members, Joel McTopy and Steve Thornton, objected to the timing and the way the issue was raised.

“Nickie knew what the salary was when he ran for president,” objected McTopy. “I just can’t support this because this is an issue for the newcouncil. “McTopy also complained that this was a budget item and therefore should be an ordinance, not a resolution, which would have the force of law behind it.

Thornton wondered, “This should have been done before the election. Nowit looks like patronage and politics.”Labat agreed with McTopy that the pay issue should be an ordinance rather than a resolution.

“For some reason, this kept getting lost in the shuffle,” said Labat to the council. “I’m kind of wondering why it is brought up now.”McTopy had another objection.

“I think it is an injustice to have Nickie vote on his raise,” McTopy said. “Imove that we defer this to the new council.”Council President Duaine Duffy responded, “I agree that the timing is not the best, but timing on this is never good no matter when you do it.”Councilman Dale Wolfe said he thought the resolution was a good idea.

“In four years, we never raised Labat’s salary. I think we should do it,” hesaid.

The resolution passed 6-1 with McTopy voting against, Monica recused himself from the voting and Kevin Duhon absent from the meeting.

In a related matter, a resolution was unanimously passed giving Duffy the power to sign a salary increase for council secretary Audrey Millet.

According to Millet, she will be making $11.99 an hour, which is at the topof the scale for parish employees.

“I’m still below the average for other council secretaries in the state,” Millet said, “but it is better than nothing.”

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