For different reasons, marshals of north Louisiana’s two mid-sized cities show how you can remain an honest cop yet at the same timebring home some big paydays.
That’s what a Louisiana Legislative Auditor report reveals that investigated all marshals of city courts in the state. There are almost 50, with some of the smaller jurisdictions making few demands and paying accordingly. Others, however, earn a lot more and even in some places that don’t have larger populations.
Marshals serve as enforcement officers of courts but can have duties beyond just carrying out security and court orders, as varied as state law and contracting opportunities allow. For example, Baton Rouge’s run the city jail, Bossier City’s monitors probationers from its city court and provides security for City Council meetings, and Oakdale’s has a patrol division hunting down speeders.
State law provides for a number of basic minimum salary schemes, but with the exception of Houma none is more than $15,000 annually. The real potential payoff comes from state law that assigns fees for various services performed (except for one in New Orleans and Baton Rouge’s) which some very actively collect and keep beyond the expenses that local governments pick up. And for many, local governments kick in nice salaries far above the minimum and also may slather on plenty of benefits. Aiding in their revenue collecting, jurisdictions are allowed to have deputies and the law sets a minimum compensation paid by local governments, plus any who are Peace Officer Standards and Training certified can receive the state supplement of $600 monthly along with any other amount that a marshal wishes to add on.
While the pair of cities in question demonstrate the range of options in funding the offices, both result in big paydays. Which brings us first to Monroe’s city marshal, Democrat Robert Cherry, who earned total compensation of $273,170 in 2023. State law requires Monroe and Ouachita Parish to pay him at least $7,200 each, but Monroe tacked on another $47,364. His benefits were pretty good, totaling $31,194, and he is POST certified. However, the lion’s share of his take came from fees collected for services, a whopping $173,102.
Cherry, who was a long-time deputy, was elected initially in 2020 for the six-year term. His campaign spent only $24,000 to win or just over $2 a resident, meaning for every resident he received $5.78 in 2023 compensation. This compensation ranked second-highest of all marshals in the state, behind only the stratospheric nearly $470,000 received by Baker’s, who also serves as the police chief of the city with an estimated 2023 population of 12,322.
Running somewhat behind him, but still with compensation not to be sneezed at, is Republican Jim Whitman, Bossier City marshal. He raked in $160,276 in 2023. Consider this, the tenth-highest amount in the state, is more than that earned by Shreveport’s, Baton Rouge’s constable, or either of New Orleans’ constables.
Emulating larger jurisdictions, and even a couple that are smaller, in population, fee collection doesn’t figure into his compensation although it comprises almost the entirety of his office’s own generated revenues. While state law mandates that the city pay him at least $5,000 and the parish $2,200, the city throws in an extra $82,800 as well as $27.269 in benefits. But his office itself from its collections gave him an extra $29,600 in salary, $4,588 in benefits, and $1,619 in reimbursements. In fact, the only part of his compensation that doesn’t come from the city or his office giving him funds straight up is his state supplemental pay.
In all, in 2023 the city kicked in $1,257,134 to the marshal’s office, while it generated $432,011, but expenses attached to that revenue generation were slightly higher. Basically, the probation monitoring function subsidized the office’s other activities. Ironically, while the city footed the major portion of Whitman’s salary as part of its subsidization of an office with fewer than 20 employees, it paid its own police chief only about $20,000 more in salary and less in total compensation, who oversaw around 200 employees with much broader responsibilities.
Whitman, who has worked in the office for over two decades, first took office in 2015. He earned a second term in 2020, running unopposed. As a result, it didn’t cost him a cent in campaign expenditures. When he originally ran in 2014, he spent around $123,000 – a pretty good investment to earn in all likelihood over ten times that in taxpayer dollars as the decade passed. It’s an arrangement the city’s Charter Review Commission that operated earlier this year – including in membership his wife, the wife of the city judge for whose court he draws responsibility, and the wife of the principal of the accounting firm that audits his books – didn’t come close to touching in its change recommendations for other city institutions.
Other north Louisiana marshals are doing six-figure business as well. The marshal in Ruston, population 22,224, made $212,067; just behind Shreveport’s $157,665 was the marshal in Minden, population 11,604, at $155,371; West Monroe, population 12,837, had its marshal make $149,415; and Natchitoches, population 17,682, had its marshal pull in $106,275. It’s little wonder these end up being desired offices.
Of course, wherever it may be the office itself isn’t really necessary. The tasks it performs the sheriff’s office or city police department could handle, and at reduced expense (the same is true for a marshal’s non-city counterparts, constables). However, Louisiana has had these comfortable sinecures back into the nineteenth century and the Legislature seems in no hurry to alter all of this.
So, if you’re in law enforcement and you want on the gravy train, learn how to campaign and beat out the competition among the electorate to get to a job that can pay much better than the chief executives of much larger agencies with much vaster duties and much greater headaches.
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