Regardless of the outcome, Bossier City Republican Councilor Brian Hammons’ entry into the city marshal’s race should shine a needed light onto a largely-superfluous office and presents a chance that taxpayers could save some bucks.
Almost 50 cities in Louisiana, some with populations in just four figures, have a city court and thus a city marshal attached to it. A carryover from the 19th century, at their basics marshals serve a court’s orders and provide for its security. But as the positions are set in statute with lots of variations, and that these offices can contract with local governments to perform additional tasks, revenues, expenses, employees, and functions can vary wildly.
Statute defines Bossier City’s marshal (technically, the constable of Ward 2) in a single place. He is allowed to appoint a deputy marshal and he is to earn at least $5,000 a year from the city and $2,200 a year from the parish. Everything else has been made up over the decades.
And in Bossier City these duties are not unsubstantial. The office runs a Teen Court, works with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, can serve in dignitary protection, coordinates crisis response among first responder agencies, has a cybercrime investigation unit, provides interagency support (such as honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers), administers a probation program for those convicted of violating city ordinances, and provides security for the city’s Municipal Complex.
And, just as notably, these duties are duplicative. There’s nothing on that list that the city’s police couldn’t handle, including the basics of court security and serving orders. Court orders, in fact, provide a potentially lucrative source of income for marshals’ offices with statute setting generous amounts for a large number of activities.
So much so, in fact, that incumbent Republican Marshal Jim Whitman made (in 2024, the last year of data as yet available) $163,377 in compensation, with $129,000 of that in salary – just above the roughly $123,000 he spent in his first bid for the office in 2014, running unopposed in 2020. Of the straight salary, the city throws on top of the minimum $5,000 another $91,600, while Whitman culls the remaining $32,400 from his own kitty (it is uncertain where the $2,200 parish minimum is located).
However, the statutory fees collected (which also includes commissions for performing services for other agencies, the pass-through amount being over $800,000) actually only are the third-highest source of revenues, at around $106,000. Around $6,000 more comes from overseeing probation but more than both combined are funds the City Court apportions to it from traffic fines which are almost a quarter-million bucks.
Expenses aren’t bad, last year low enough that the office added over $150,000 to pad its reserves to stand at over $1.1 million. And, keep in mind that the city also contributes heftily to operating the office. For this year, it expected to spend over $1.7 million of its own taxpayers’ money on the office, with more than half going to the salaries of the 15 employees
Hammons, in his announcement, pledged he would “[i]mprove efficiency in court services and operations,” which might mean he would look at paring some activities and expenses. For example, why does the city kick in nearly six figures worth of salary to the marshal? Why not pay the minimum in statute and then execute a series of contracts with the office to perform the extra duties, and then the marshal could decide how much to take out of those for his salary?
Or consider the total remuneration (all benefits plus taxes paid) given by the city to the budgeted employees in the department other than Whitman. This averages $95,536.33, compared to $99,737.97 for the 214 budgeted city police positions. However, the police figure is bloated because the retirement system for municipal police is having to pay extraordinarily high contributions for defeasance of a big portion of its unfunded accrued liabilities by 2034 while that is not the case for the different system deputies are members of. Backing out retirement payments, that figure falls to $78,355.72 for police but $86,074 for deputies – for a smaller range of policing tasks (and not including the compensation directly paid by the marshal). How to justify the difference?
These provide a sample of where Hammons could find efficiencies – and Whitman has not. Of course, the best thing would be to eliminate the office completely to be rid of the duplication of services (not really in those being done by both but in the police have the capacity to perform those that the marshal’s office currently does) that almost certainly city police could provide less expensively, but as no statutory change necessary appears in sight, working smarter will have to do.
Yet beyond the fiscal implications are the political considerations. Hammons helped to lead the wave of city officials, now crested into government, looking out with more fidelity for taxpayer interests, separate from the traditional good-old-boy network that ran the city for decades and of which Whitman is a member. With City Court and the marshal’s office the last two redoubts still in the hands of the network, Hammons’ candidacy represents a fundamental challenge to that.
Interestingly, divisiveness from the issue of term limits may resurface. Whitman’s wife Vicki was on the city’s Chater Review Commission, which eventually became an exercise in the good-old-boy network trying to prevent hard term limits from booting out of office its members. Voters choose with an overwhelming majority strict term limits and rejected watering it down which the group Vicki Whitman had helped to front had wanted. That may cost Jim Whitman some votes.
However, Hammons needs to tread carefully. Observers believed he was primed to take a stab at the mayor’s office in 2029, but were he to run for marshal and win, voters might not be enthused if he then before completing a six-year term as marshal tried to run for mayor, seeing this is a job-hopping, flighty path the higher office. By doing this, if he has designs on the mayoralty, a win means politically speaking he would have to wait until 2033 to seek that office.
As another thing to consider if against Whitman, who appears primed to run for reelection, is that Hammons has no law enforcement experience. Whitman can use this as a talking point, arguing that his law enforcement experience makes him more suitable for the job.
Regardless, Hammons seems ready to go, setting up an intriguing conflict between a good old boy and a face of fiscal reform for Bossier City
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