Councilmembers passed an ordinance at its most recent June 19 St. Charles Parish Council meeting, placing new salary-related amendments on the upcoming Oct. 14 ballot. The two amendments will allow voters to decide if the parish president and councilmembers’ annual pay should be increased closer to pay levels commensurate with their elected peers in other parishes.
Referencing a recent salary study and review, Councilmember Holly Fonseca gave facts and figures at the council meeting in support of the ordinance, showing parish president and councilmembers’ salaries had fallen well behind even several smaller, lower-populated parishes with smaller annual budgets to manage.
“The review showed that the parish president’s annual salary of $122,245 is less than the majority of regional, full-time elected peers,” Fonseca said. “And despite the charter being the chief executive officer of St. Charles Parish with the largest budget and highest number of employees, the parish president also has the lowest salary of all full-time parish-wide elected officials.”
The parish’s home rule charter, Fonseca mentioned at the meeting, was last amended by voters some 35 years ago to adjust St. Charles Parish president and councilmember’s salaries.
The ordinance the St. Charles Parish Council proposed for the upcoming Oct. 14 ballot aims to bring St. Charles Parish president’s salary up to $175,000, which Fonseca said would be on par with local and regional and elected peers. Citing the council’s salary study, Fonseca said 12 appointed and two civil services salaries within St. Charles Parish currently take home higher pay than the parish president, despite the parish president being St. Charles Parish’s top elected full-time official.
“The $175,000 closely equates to the average of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s, Clerk of Courts and Assessor’s current 2023 salaries,” Fonseca stated.
The parish council’s ordinance also proposed raising elected part-time council salaries to $24,000 for at-large positions and $19,200 for district council positions. Current pay for St. Charles Parish councilmembers are $17,007 for at-large council positions and $12,755 for district councilmembers.
Fonseca shared in the meeting 71 percent of council part-time elected peers in parishes statewide make more than St. Charles Parish councilmembers, while 53 percent statewide at-large councilmembers statewide make more than St. Charles Parish at-large councilmembers. The salary disparities exist for parish councilmembers “despite only 30 percent of Louisiana parishes having a population greater than St. Charles Parish,” Fonseca said.
If approved by voters in October, the new proposed ordinance includes a cost-of-living adjustment component for councilmembers that would increase their pay annually starting in 2025 by the same percentage rate for parish civil service employees.
Several councilmembers for the ordinance pointed out any approved salary increase for the parish president and councilmembers would not take effect until the following term. Councilmembers currently serving who are ‘termed out’ and cannot serve any additional terms or do not get re-elected in the upcoming election will not benefit from any salary increase.
The council was not in full agreement with the measure, as the motion passed 6-2, with Councilmembers Nicky Dufrene and Julia Fisher-Cormier voting against the ordinance. The two dissenting councilmembers each had separate issues with the ordinance and chose to vote against it, ranging from the amount of the increase for the parish president, the annual cost of living increase amount and timing of the vote.
“This [proposed] increase is not so significant that we’re going to pull some new people out of the woodwork,” Fisher-Cormier said just before her dissenting vote on the ordinance. “We all got into this knowing what the pay was – you do this [job] because you are called to serve.”
The salary increase ordinance was first introduced in the parish council’s June 5 meeting, and then formally voted on and approved by the parish president after allowing public comment in the later June 19 council meeting. Just two parish residents spoke up regarding the ordinance during the June 19 public comment period, with both residents in favor.
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