Mayor-President Josh Guillory is presenting a budget tonight that is $21.8 million less than the 2019-2020 budget, according to the proposed budget released to KATC late tonight. They say the previous council’s use of the City General Fund Balance, mixed with decreased sales tax collection and the impacts of COVID-19, have led to the budget reductions in the proposal.
According to the budget, there will be 67 fewer people working for city parish government. The two departments seeing the biggest personnel losses are Parks and Recreation (with 37 employees impacted and nearly 52% of their budget cut) and Community Development (24 employees impacted and nearly 74% of their budget cut).
In Parks and Recreation, among the 37 employees let go were all the Park Police Officers and nearly half of those in operations and maintenance. The mayor-president did add $300,000 to “Geaux Mow” that he’s proposing handle much of the maintained duties. The 37 employees cut from Parks and Recreation were as follows:
Director’s Office:
Clerk III (1)
Accounting Clerk (1)
Operations and Maintenance:
Secretary 1 (1)
Campground Attendant (1)
Laborer 1 (3)
Labor Foreman 2 (1)
Equipment Operator 1 (10)
Tennis:
Tennis Program Coordinator (1)
Laborer II (1)
Centers & Other Programs:
Clerk III (1)
Park Police Officer (5)
Chief of Park Police (1)
Recreation Centers Coordinators (5)
Janitors (5)
Following cuts in the Community Development Department, several entities were left with only one employee on the payroll for the fiscal year 2020-2021. The 24 employees cut from the Community Development Department are as follows:
Senior Center:
Clerk Typist (2)
Janitor (2)
Senior Center Coordinator (2)
The only person who remains in this division is the Human Services Manager.
Heymann Center:
Clerk III (1)
Accounting Specialist (1)
Production Technician (1)
Lafayette Science Museum:
Receptionist (1)
Administrative Assistant (1)
Cashier (1)
Exhibit Guide (1)
Assistant Curator (1)
Museum Curator (3)
Museum and Planetarium Tech (1)
Maintenance Worker (1)
The only person who remains in this division is the Museum Administrator.
Nature Station:
Naturalist (1)
The only person who remains in this division is the Museum Curator.
Maintenance:
Laborer II (2)
Labor Foreman (2)
The only person who remains in this division is the Maintenance Supervisor.
Those departments seeing an increase in personnel are Public Works, Drainage, and the Communications System.
When it comes to budget cuts, the proposed budget calls for removing “subsidies” for Parks and Recreation ($3.7 million), Golf Courses ($645,000), and the Heymann Center ($527,000). Payments to other entities have been reduced: Science Museum (from 1.18 million to $363,000), Transit ($2.8 million to $892,000), Parking ($117,000 to $61,000), and Development and Planning ($2.5 million to $1.5 million). However, other funding has slightly increased including the Fire Pension Fund, Police Pension Fund, War Memorial, and Coroner’s Office. Seeing the biggest increase is the Correctional Center (from $2.3 million to $4.2 million).
The full proposed budget for FY 2020-2021 is below:
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