By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – The St. John Council voted Thursday to grant all government hourly employees a 3-percent raise in pay, while also approving creation of a new pay grade and position in the civil service system.

The new pay grade, which had been brought before the council twice before, creates a new position within the administration known as “professional administrator.” Parish President Bill Hubbard said this position would allow the parish to hire professional engineers and other middle management to assist appointed directors within their respective departments.

“This will enable St. John Parish to keep up with more modern parishes who have created similar positions within their government,” said Hubbard after the meeting. “We need more professionals within the parish.”

Before the vote took place, Hubbard told the council that the position was proposed as a way to provide some continuity between future administrations and future councils. He said when a new administration comes aboard, there is a lot of pressure to completely “clean house” and install new people.

“It leaves you governing with a bunch of rookies,” said Hubbard. “This will allow the parish to employ engineers and people in coastal management. I’m not doing this to put specific people in parish positions.”

The council voted 6-2 in favor of the proposal, with Division A Councilman-at-Large Dale Wolfe and District 7 Councilwoman Cheryl Millet casting the lone dissenting votes. District 4 Councilwoman Jaclyn Hotard was absent for the vote. Millet said she didn’t support the proposal in the past and still does not now because she sees it as unfair to the existing employees in the parish.

“This is why departments have directors,” Millet said. “There is no need for this.”

The hourly employee boost in pay, proposed by Wolfe, comes almost a month after the parish council unanimously approved a 2-percent raise. The ordinance Thursday passed by a 7-1 vote, with Division B Councilman-at-Large Steve Lee voting against it.

“The common sense study is that our employees are grossly overpaid,” Wolfe told the council before the vote. “If we can sit here and approve a grade 11,” he said, referring to the new pay grade, “we can certainly approve this ordinance.”

Wolfe said passage of the raise should not be looked at as a “behind the scenes” deal to ensure passage of the “professional administrator” ordinance, which he said he still did not support.

“I’ve said everything I need to on that,” said Wolfe.

Although they supported the across-the-board raise, Millet and District 6 Councilman Ronnie Smith both said that they would rather see an hourly rate increase as opposed to a percentage increase.

“The percents are not always equal,” said Millet. “Lower paid personnel see higher raises.”

In other action Thursday, the council received an update regarding the status of the parish’s $3.3 million Nano water filtration system following Hurricane Gustav.

Parish Engineer C.J. Savoie said the system, which is designed to filter contaminants from St. John Parish’s tap water, was ready for activation August 29, but parish officials made the decision not to start it since it was unclear what may happen to it during the storm.

“If we had any problems or snags, this was not the time to get involved with it,” said Savoie. “The wells at Ruddock were on generator power, and there was just too much risk involved. We did, however, receive a passing grade on our water samples from the state, which is a positive sign.”

Savoie told the council there was no noticeable damage to any of the components but said he was uncertain about when officials from General Electric, the manufacturers of the system, could get back to the area. He said the key liaison from GE left for Gustav back to his home in Houston, where he is dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Savoie could not provide the council with a new start up date.