By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — The St. John the Baptist Parish Council approved the parish’s 2015 budget Tuesday, but not without amendments and tension among Council members and administrative officials.

Councilman Michael Wright offered amendments to parish administration’s proposed budget, which were passed by the majority of the Council.

The parish’s budget proposed salary increases for all non-classified parish employees, with most to receive a 5-percent increase. Three positions were set to increase by higher percentages, namely director of planning and zoning at 6.7 percent, an assistant to Robottom at 25 percent and the parish’s public information officer at 11 percent.

Wright proposed an across-the-board salary increase of 2.5 percent, but left the parish president, chief administrative officer and utilities director out of that increase.

Wright said leaving CAO Michael Coburn out was done because he only took office in October, and giving him a salary increase wasn’t justified.

As for Parish President Natalie Robottom and Utilities Director Virgil Rayneri, Wright said he and other Council members have gotten called about neither deserving a salary increase.

Wright said Robottom is “one of the highest-paid parish presidents in the state,” and cited the ameba-related water issues as reason for justifying Rayneri’s stagnant pay.

“The Council has unanimously asked for the resignation (of Rayneri) by both parish president and utilities director, and they have ignored the request,” Wright added.

A $50,000 increase to the drainage projects fund was also proposed by Wright, who said he was “outraged administration wanted to decrease the drainage project line item” from $325,500 in 2014 to $300,000 in 2015. With the passed amendment, the 2015 budget will now include $350,000 for drainage projects, which Wright said are always being brought to the Council by constituents.

The Council chose to increase the “special needs” and “senior program” line items in the parish’s recreation department, bringing the total to $5,000 for special needs programs and $5,000 for senior programs.

Other adjustments approved by the Council included earmarking $25,000 for the Creole Farmers’ Market and $10,000 for the Boogie Joseph Center improvements.

Councilman At Large Lucien J. Gauff III voted against Wright’s proposed amendments and the passage of the budget, saying Wright chose to propose changes to the budget without fairly warning the rest of the Council.

“At least you kept me in the dark, and I do have a problem with that,” Gauff said.

Robottom said she and her office tried to keep the budget process “open and communicative,” and Tuesday’s budget amendments were “not representative of what good government should do.”

Wright said he felt as though it was important to get a budget passed before Christmas out of respect for the parish’s finance department, who will have to make formal changes before Jan. 1.

He said to further draw out the process would be unfair.

The 2014 budget was passed on Dec. 30, 2013.

The proposed $102 million budget has been the topic of conversation at regularly scheduled and special meetings since October when it was first presented to the Council.