A shorthanded Gonzales City Council declined to approve Mayor Tim Riley’s General Fund (Operating) Budget ordinance last night, the 2-2 vote insufficient to enact the budget ordinance being considered for a second time on Monday. Mayor Riley and his administration, unsurprised by the budget vote, were curiously upbeat after the meeting adjourned. The mayor pointed to another 2-2 council vote taken after the budget deadlock, this one to approve a contract with South Central Planning & Development Commission (SCPDC) to run Gonzales’ Planning Department.
Not all 2-2 votes are the same.
Mayor Riley broke the tie in approving the proposed Planning Department contract, not something he could do with the budget ordinance vote. Any ordinance requires a majority of the council’s total membership, whether council persons are absent or not. The mayor focused on the positive, effusive in his praise for SCPDC and confident that his operating budget will be approved in time to avert disaster.
“We will be introducing a General Fund Budget ordinance at the next regularly scheduled council meeting on July 28. My administration welcomes any council member to discuss any budgetary issue he or she would like before that introduction in the hope that some compromise might be reached,” Mayor Riley said last night. “It is the same Open Door policy we have had since taking office on January 6.”
“Securing South Central Planning’s services was key to ensuring professional and cost-effective operations of the department responsible for monitoring continued development inside the city. We are lucky to have them on board and there is no credible argument against SCPDC’s engagement,” added Riley’s Chief of Staff, Wade Petite.
Councilman Tyler Turner, who continues to claim that he and Kirk Boudreaux (absent last night) are being denied an itemized roster of all budgeted positions, disagreed. Turner brought Gonzales’ Chief Building Official to the public speakers’ dais on Monday to inquire why he was not being trained to undertake those Planning & Zoning functions. After all, Turner mused, the Chief Building Official is being paid over $130,000.
Budgeted salaries for Planning & Development, Streets & Drainage, Executive Department, Recreation
Which is a gross overstatement (off by more than $40,000) according to the itemized list of every budgeted position produced by Faulk & Winkler’s Jacob Waguespack, the contracted accountant engaged by the city as a de facto Finance Director.
“Mr. Waguespack handed us that itemized list of every budgeted position during a June 18 meeting attended by Councilmen Turner and Boudreaux,” recounted Mayor Riley. “Both councilmen were provided the five-page document at the same time we received it.”
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- Fire Department positions with corresponding salaries
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- Budgeted Administration and Utilities positions with corresponding salaries
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- Buildings & Grounds, Water & Gas, Wastewater and Meter Reader budgeted salaries
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- Police Department budgeted salaries
“To now claim that he has not received the requested document, well, I’ll let the councilman explain it,” Riley demurred.
The Chief Building Official’s role has little to do with Planning & Zoning. The current occupant of the position was not elevated as a replacement for the department head who resigned in February. They are two separate and distinct roles and always have been.
When Justin Dupuy (the former Planning & Development Director) left the city’s employe five months ago it was All South Consulting Engineers who filled the void, billing against a preexisting “not to exceed $250,000” engineering and project management contract unanimously approved by the council. Ill-equipped to oversee planning/zoning matters, the engineering firm’s billing exceeded $100,000 in less than five months.
“(SCPDC) has quoted us $135,000 for 12 months of service, less than we were paying the former Planning & Development Director if you factor in health insurance, retirement and other benefits cost,” Wade Petite argued. “How any council member with nearly a decade of service can be so oblivious to that simple fact is less than comforting. The city is very fortunate to have South Central on board to fill this urgent need and executing this contract is a no-brainer.”
The mayor said he will sign the contract with SCPDC Tuesday morning.
As for the General Fund Budget ordinance…
“I intend to introduce an ordinance in two weeks,” Riley declared, “and I hope the council holdouts come to the table to negotiate toward a compromise budget that gets three votes. My administration remains confident that a deal can be reached before certain departments run out of money.”
Without specifically citing the departments he had in mind, it is no secret that the administration has concluded that police and fire departments will burn through the current budget appropriation before other departments. By operation of state law, the city has half of the 2024-2025 General Fund Budget at its disposal since the current fiscal year commenced without a new budget in place.
“The Council will adopt the operating budget because it would be absolute insanity not to do so, and it’ll happen before the police department runs out of money in mid-November or so. If that happened GPD officers would leave, and I don’t think it farfetched that the department would cease to exist,” Petite said a few days ago.
Eerily silent, elected Chief of Police Sherman Jackson “could end all of this with a phone call” according to Petite.
Asked for comment on the budget process last week, Chief Jackson declined.
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