City of Gonzales “ripped off” by unlicensed contractor due to “system failure” in 2024

“A system failure” led to “the City of Gonzales getting ripped off” by an unlicensed fence company contracted to provide various services in 2024.  That was the assessment of Mayor Tim Riley’s administration at Monday’s discussion of vendor report regarding Liberty Fence & Supply, LLC.  Representing the administration, longtime Riley advisor Wade Petite opined that Liberty Fence overcharged the city by “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and…

“None of this, I believe, could have happened without somebody on the inside.  There’s no way,” Petite argued.  “If not, it is the most egregious lapse in fiscal responsibility in the history of this city.”

Gonzales’ former Chief Administrative Assistant Scot Byrd took to social media Monday night to point a few fingers at certain personnel who were positioned to curtail Liberty Fence’s purported excess, going on to commend “Mayor Riley for looking into this.”  He absolved former Mayor Barney Arceneaux who resigned his post at the end of April, implicitly blaming the interim mayor and Councilman Kirk Boudreaux who both “signed all these checks.”

Byrd, himself, was shown the door by Mayor Ryland Percy who was chosen by the City Council to finish Arceneaux’s unexpired term at its May 8 meeting.  Byrd was dumped by Mayor Percy in late September but allowed to stay on in name until November 7 (in order to accrue seven years of service time for retirement purposes).  He now works for the City of St. George (meeting minutes for its council from March 11 include “Presentation by IBTS Program Director Scot Byrd on monthly activity and financials) through the private company.  IBTS is the acronym for Institute for Building Technology & Safety.

His Facebook post from Monday has a point, an “escalation of (Liberty Fence) invoices” did happen “after Mayor Arceneaux left to lead the Louisiana Municipal Association.”  But that escalation only further ramped up a significant increase that began in 2023 and continued through the first four months of 2024.

The Gonzales council’s meeting packet from Monday included Vendor Report-Liberty Fence, which is excerpted below:

14. Monthly invoices, in number and amount, fluctuated from January through May of 2024. June saw a spike that would continue for months.

• June – 14 invoices totaling $73,700
• July – 18 invoices totaling $134,755
• August – 19 invoices totaling $179,067
• September – 26 invoices totaling $252,179
• October – 25 invoices totaling $286,380
• November – 25 invoices totaling $110,596
• December – 29 invoices totaling $146,678

15. The spike in invoices and their amounts coincided with former mayor, Barney Arceneaux’s resignation at the end of April.

The question remains:

“Why did we engage an unlicensed fence company to take over all of our tree-cutting, sidewalk and concrete pouring, plumbing, electrical, maintenance at Jambalaya Park and the pool?  They took it all,” Wade Petite expressed the Riley administration’s concern.  “What we found, when we got on the ground, was cause for more concern.”

The point being, Liberty Fence’s assumption of these tasks to the exclusion of multiple other vendors occurred on then mayor Barney Arceneaux’s (and CAO Scot Byrd’s) watch.

Petite highlighted two jobs in particular, concrete sidewalk rehabilitation at two Gonzales Parks (Municipal and Tee Joe) where Liberty Fence pocketed $369,000 pursuant to 14 separate invoices.

The report itemizes 11 invoices totaling $287,000 for sidewalk rehab at Gonzales’ Municipal Park from July 15 to October 15, another $82,000 in three invoices for sidewalk replacement at Tee Joe Park.  According to an attached survey only 1228 lineal feet of sidewalk was replaced at Municipal Park (with another 167 lineal feet deemed “questionable”).  That would come to a price of $233.71 per foot of concrete sidewalk (or $ 205.88 per foot if the “questionable” sidewalk is included).

“One of the things that mystified us was how all these jobs came in at the same number (ten invoices in the amount of $20,5000 and four worth $41,000),” Petite said.

The responsible department supervisor, interviewed by the administration on March 17, claimed that all invoices correspond to a pre-determined number of lineal feet of new sidewalk to be poured.  Purportedly, the $20,500 invoices corresponded to 250 lineal feet with the $41,000 invoices tied to 500 lineal feet of new sidewalk.

A cited consultant put the cost of sidewalk at approximately $4,000 per 100 lineal feet (or $40 per foot).  If accurate, Municipal Park sidewalk should have cost $49,120 (1228 lineal feet) or $55,760 (1394 lineal feet).

“We think we’ve been ripped off on (the Municipal Park) job to the tune of $235,000…and another $65,000 at Tee Joe Park,” Petite said.  “That starts to add up.”

From the Vendor Report:

Invoice No. 1613, dated 10/15/24, in the amount of $27,540.  The floating dock is a product of EZDock (PN 200900) that, according to the company’s Master Price list, costs $2,012,” the Liberty Fence Vendor Report states.

Accompanying hardware (to give Liberty Fence the benefit of every doubt) includes the launch (priced at $300), coupler set, pipe bracket HD-3.5, brown plastic ADA curbing 2.5” x 3.5” x 96”, railing-80” soba alum, railing 5” soba alum kit, PE bench kit with arms and hardware, 3’ x 21’ 40 galvanized pipe w/ pvc, 4’ wide x 3’ long aluminum gangway w/ handrails.”

Petite went on to question Liberty Fence invoices related to tree removal and fence building, asserting that “the prices they charged from (2023 to 2024) more than doubled.”

“We went out to all the sites described in various invoices but could find no evidence that work was performed,” he said.  More disturbing, “We can’t find any competitive bids for 189 invoices.  We wonder how this was allowed to happen.”

Apparently, jobs were unilaterally issued by various department heads without any discernible oversight exercised by higher ups.

For context, and in reply to Councilwoman Cynthia Gray James, Petite offered:

• $1,338,875 amounts to 7% of all sales tax revenue ($19.6 million) collected by the City of Gonzales in 2024
• $1,338,875 could fund 13 new police officers for the year

Councilwoman James further inquired about the process for payment of invoices.

1. An invoice is submitted
2. The responsible supervisor generates a Purchase Order (in practice it was generated within a day of the invoices submission)
3. The P.O. is forwarded to the Finance Department which had to approve every invoice over $5,000
4. A check is drafted and sent to the mayor’s office
5. The mayor (Barney Arceneaux until April 30, then interim mayor Ryland Percy beginning on May 8) would sign checks along with the Council member (Kirk Boudreaux for the last several years) over Finance

“A lot of eyes looked at all these invoices…and we wonder how this was allowed to happen,” Petite called it “a system failure” without singling any individual out.  “Mayor Riley told me in no uncertain terms that we have to prevent this from ever happening again.”

 

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