Parish looks to cut cost

St. Pierre says he is 60 employees short, needs more money

St. Charles Parish President V.J. St. Pierre, and his executive staff are looking at ways to reduce spending in the parish so that he can reward hard-working employees and bring in new workers.

To do that, St. Pierre is examining records of which parish employees have access to a car or cell phone and if that access is warranted.

“My executive staff and I looked at some of the bills that were accumulating in the parish and we’re trying to figure out now where we can make some budget cuts,” he said. “We’re not saying that anyone in the parish who has access to a car or a cell phone is doing anything wrong, but we are trying to get an idea about who needs a phone and a car.”

As an example of employees that deserve rewards, St. Pierre spoke about an incident that could have cost the parish thousands of dollars. Instead, a fast-thinking employee rose to the occasion.

“There was a parish employee who was driving along Highway 90 in Paradis and he noticed the pumps were running,” he said. “The only time the pump runs is during a flood or a heavy rain, so the employee acted quickly.”

St. Pierre says the worker discovered a 20-foot breach in a section of the levee that runs behind Hahnville High School and he quickly informed his supervisor and got a crew together.

“That could have been costly,” he said. “He save the parish a lot of money and he should be rewarded.”

However, even though St. Pierre wants to reward his current employees, he says the parish is currently facing a huge shortage of workers and needs at least 60 skilled laborers.
“By making budget cuts, we can look at the civil service pay scale and possibly make it possible for these workers to get raises earlier rather than later,” he said. “And we can also look at ways to increase pay for some of the lower paid civil service employees to try to get skilled laborers interested in working for the parish.”

St. Pierre says that by keeping everyone up-to-date on what his administration is involved in, as he is doing with his council meeting reports, it will help to keep residents informed.

“Before I became parish president, I would watch the council meetings on television and it seemed to me that people weren’t aware of what was going on in the parish,” he said. “I decided to give a briefing to let residents know what the administration is working on to keep them interested in parish government.”