Bossier spending way up; public doesn't know why

Bossier Parish contemplates spending for fiscal year 2023 that will leap by a fifth. If only citizens knew why without going to a lot of inconvenience related to the opaque way the Police Jury does business.

Next week, the Jury will consider final adoption of the budget, going from $103 million in FY 2022 to $128 million this year. Major areas of increased spending include judicial functions, up $2.5 million to $6.2 million; public works, up $12.5 million to nearly $55 million; and culture and recreation, up over $6 million to nearly $17 million. Revenues hardly have kept pace, actually falling over $2 million from last year to almost $91 million. And that’s with state and other funds (from the federal government in special one-time payments such as in the name of the pandemic and Democrat-imposed spending bills) down about that much year-over-year. The parish has to dip into reserves as a result, leaving $61 million left.

This accounting isn’t precise. The Jury posts on its website the budget after its adoption, in broad categories for the general fund and for each special fund. But it doesn’t list figures from the previous year, either budgeted or actually spent. So, the actually spent figures may differ, and substantially, but if you want to know for sure, you’ll either have to trawl through every meeting’s minutes to see if the Jury made adjustments or make a public records request and hope a document with a running tally exists.

And you’ll have to take my word for it, unless you make the trek to the courthouse to inspect physically budget documents or you initiate a formal public records request, for at this time there is no online posting of the barebones presentation that goes into the forthcoming public notice regarding the budget. The only way I even obtained a copy of the cursory listing in the forthcoming ordinance was asking Public Information Officer Pat Culverhouse, who I’ve known for over a quarter-century, to send me one by e-mail, which he did after its filing with the clerk of court Dec. 14.

I had hoped, and asked, for the information in advance of the Dec. 7 meeting when first introduced. Further, I hoped to obtain a detailed listing at the very least akin of the 2022 recap, but better still a full reckoning along the lines of what the Bossier City Council publishes in its ordinances and online, with separate ones for each fund and a line item approach within.

Dream on. As other area governments increase their transparency, Bossier Parish more and more glaringly sticks out like a sore thumb for its secrecy. At their most recent meetings, jurors nearly broke their arms patting themselves on their own backs for installing a new camera in chambers to broadcast meetings on rinky-dink Facebook Live which must have set them back nearly three figures. They effusively complimented the setup because, for the first time, all jurors could be seen in frame (and the sound is better as well). One wonders why they didn’t express awe that something called the Internet had been invented as they so little utilize that technology for the sake of openness.

Why an outfit that spends over $100 million a year can’t put in a professional system such as the Bossier City Council has had for years, as well as intersperse the broadcast with a shot of vote tallies right after they are taken, boggles the mind. Take that exponentially further in that the Council now provides as part of its online posted agenda replication of all the material each councilor receives for each agenda item including the full text of ordinances and resolutions, which costs basically zero both in time and money to post, while the best the Jury can manage is to throw a few maps out there on zoning items and that’s it.

That darkness extends to other matters. The latest interim juror and parish administrator appointments were cloaked in secrecy, with almost zero public information dissemination throughout the process until the white smoke billowed with presentation of the new juror and administrator.

It's as if jurors subscribe to Dignam’s Theory on the Feds, where the jurors consider the public who employs them and to whom they pledge to serve like mushrooms. And it’s a nonstarter to say that the public, 90 percent of whom don’t live within five miles of the courthouse, can troop over to Benton during working hours during the working day to inspect agenda items’ documentation or can go to the equal amount of trouble to make official public records requests each and every Jury meeting. Maybe a quarter-century ago that was necessary, but there’s no excuse in this day and age, with widespread and instant dissemination costs close to zero, to continue giving out like an eyedropper information the public has a right to know well prior to decisions made by their elected representatives on it.

2023 brings Jury elections. This penchant of the Jury refusing to be more transparent needs to become a campaign issue, with any current jurors and any challengers contesting for seats asked whether they support more having informative live then curated Jury meeting broadcasts and placing online all materials distributed to jurors for their meetings. And then put into office those who pledge greater transparency.