Like a successful burglar in the night, the Bossier Parish Police Jury passed a budget that nobody can decipher outside of the courthouse much less knew about, perhaps because nobody outside of parish government really could tell what was in it.
This should come as no surprise, as the Jury has a history as the most opaque of major northwest Louisiana governments, if not of any nine-figure local government in the state. Unlike other are larger local governments, in its agendas, other than some maps to go along with zoning decisions (which is the bulk of its decision-making), its various ordinances and resolutions contain no documentation or attachments, just their titles and extremely brief descriptions. Compelled by state law to transmit its meetings and those of its committees, for the former it chooses a low-quality Facebook Live format which at least creates an archival copy, as for the latter it uses Zoom that keeps no copy for future viewing.
Its staff can’t even get right the new state law that compels such governments to send out agendas to its meetings and any of its committee meetings to any requestor. I made such a request originally to the parish’s public information officer Rod White, which got shuttled to the assistant parish secretary Ashley Ezell who then wrote after the Nov. 20 meeting saying the agenda bounced to the e-mail address to which she had sent that note (no mention about the committees). It baffles me why it would bounce when she subsequently sent successfully a message to that account, but I wrote her back saying the address was good, for obvious reasons.
Predictably, I didn’t receive an agenda for the Dec. 4 meeting that covered the 2025 budget or any of the subcommittee meetings, although as noted these, including the committee agendas, have so little information attached it’s hardly worth the effort. Predictable, because when I wrote White originally I also asked him whether the Library Board of Control – comprised of the entire Police Jury and illegally so – had met more than once this year and whether it ever had met Feb. 21 as had been planned (and to which I should be entitled to receive an agenda, except it doesn’t seem to have met again), and his response … crickets. A taxpayer getting information out of these people and this government who operate by those taxes paid, including information it is legally entitled to give, is like pulling teeth.
So, it comes as no surprise that budget information disseminated to the public virtually was nonexistent. As opposed to Bossier City and the Bossier Parish School District, each of which posts prior to adoption over 100 pages of detailed information, all Bossier Parish publishes is, naturally, the bare minimum required by law, the official public notice that runs in the official journal, which looks like this:
N O T I C E
The Bossier Parish Police Jury will conduct a budget hearing on the 2025 proposed budget on December 4, 2024, at 2:00 p.m., in the Police Jury Meeting Room, Bossier Parish Courthouse, Benton, Louisiana, in accordance with law.
The following is a summary of the proposed budget, which may be inspected between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday at the Police Jury Office, Bossier Parish Courthouse, Benton, Louisiana.
REVENUES:
Taxes - Ad Valorem $45,320,191
Licenses and permits $1,436500
Intergovernmental revenue - federal funds $7,578,488
- state funds $3,520,293
- other $8,743,787
Fees, charges and commissions for service $9,894,450
Fines and forfeitures $1,175,100
Use of money and property $2,271,200
LWCC Dividend $0
Other revenue $19,213,721
TOTAL REVENUE $99,153,730
Operating transfers in $17,731,626
Beginning Fund Balances $101,143,958
TOTAL REVENUES, FUND BALANCES
AND TRANSFERS $218,029,314
EXPENDITURES:
General government - legislative $549,868
- judicial $7,487,674
- elections $343,404
- financial & administration $9,839,117
- other $550,173
Public Safety $11,235,635
Public Works $30,745,441
Public Utilities $17,205,704
Health and welfare $7,950,994
Culture and recreation $12,975,158
Economic development and assistance $1,642,163
Debt service
Principal $18,010,500
Interest and other $2,359,034
TOTAL EXPENDITURES $120,894,865
Operating transfers out $17,731,626
Ending Fund Balances $79,402,823
Reserves 0
TOTAL EXPENDITURES, RESERVES
AND TRANSFERS $218,029,314
Yeah, you read it right. That’s all you get unless you troop to the courthouse during business hours. How difficult can it be to post something like Bossier City or the BPSD puts out on the web prior to the meeting? Or even offer to send it through e-mail to interested parties?
Even something like what the parish puts out on the web sometime early next year, a spreadsheet of the adopted budget that could appear as a proposal prior to the meeting to adopt. The 2024 version (to be amended Dec. 18 to reflect the adjustments throughout the year) at least breaks down all funds and major categories of expenditures.
Not that this tells much, either. For example, parish constables and justices of the peace made a plea earlier this year for a needless large increase in their salaries paid by the parish. The month after, at the meeting the budget hearing was scheduled, the Bossier Chamber of Commerce’s president Lisa Johnson appeared before the Jury as the Chamber decided to grift parish taxpayers for next year, asking jurors to hand over $25,000 to back the low-content feel-good BeBossier website that advertises with positive public relations pieces area businesses who should be paying for it themselves from the dues the Chamber collects rather than hitting up taxpayers for it. The summary spreadsheet will tell the citizenry nothing about whether their tax dollars will be thrown away on stuff like this.
And reading just the public notice might lead citizens to wonder whether the parish is going to go broke sooner rather than later. After all, it reports $99 million in revenues but $121 million in spending, with the fund balances absorbing the hit and implying at that rate with only $79 million in reserve the parish will go belly up in four years.
Only if you care to go back through with some care the previous posted adopted budgets will a much less alarming picture emerge. The difference represents burning through capital outlay spending for the most part. A check of the funds, including general, that govern operations show them pretty much balanced (although those dealing with judicial matters need outside transfers from revenues sources designed to supplement them) including enterprise funds for water and sewerage; it’s the capital projects funds being depleted as they are used for their intended purposes that explains the difference.
It's no wonder that when the came time for citizen input when conducting the hearing there was none; what chance did they have to get any detailed information on the budget to even elicit any commentary? Nor did jurors, satisfied at the backroom dealings that bore the budget, make any comments and obviously voted unanimously for the $218 million product (up $17 million from last year). The time from opening the hearing to passing the budget took less time than it does to flush a courthouse commode.
It's as if Bossier Parish was a black hole for citizen knowledge of its affairs (at least that not dispensed by the parish itself designed show off parish governance in the best light), preventing any from escaping except that pried loose by state law. Bossier citizens deserve better than to have a parish government utterly disinterested in facilitating openness about its decision-making, especially when it would cost the parish nothing to make the process so much more transparent. Almost as if jurors didn’t want their employers, the citizenry, to know what they were doing.
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