Bossier Jury breaking laws over library board

The new year marks just on two years that the Bossier Parish Police Jury has been breaking the law concerning how it governs its libraries, and it gives no indication it’s going to stop doing that any time soon.

Mark Jan. 10, 2024 as the day the Jury began to rack up legal violations. Statute places library governance in the hands of a library board of control for municipalities and, in this case, parishes. R.S. 25:215 states that the board of control shall have authority to establish rules and regulations for its own government and that of the library not inconsistent with law. This includes employing and evaluating the library director, establishing and adopting written library policies, working to secure adequate funding for the library system, adopting the library system’s annual budget, and takes responsibility for providing and maintaining library facilities, resources, and services.

The governing authority, in this case the Jury, has its involvement defined largely in R.S. 25:214. It appoints members to the board and, through R.S. 33:1415 mentioned in this statute and R.S. 25:220.1, also exercisers budgetary and fiscal control that includes approval of annual operating budgets with the right to veto or reduce line-items and vet for approval any submission to the people to levy any tax or issue any bonds. In succeeding sections, statutes say that the head librarian (synonymous with director of libraries) and the Jury are to deliver an annual report, the Jury must pay expenses monthly for the library out of any special tax levied for that purpose and if insufficient its general fund, and must approve of any gifts received for the library system while the board must approve of any expenditures from these.

The 2024 meeting began and ended problematically, beginning with the fact that it was the 2024 meeting – and none since. Not having a meeting since then triggered a slew of violations, most prominently a requirement to meet at least annually, which it did not in 2025. Legally, three officers must be elected on an annual basis while the library director serves as secretary; that was not done in 2025. At that meeting, there was no budget proposed or adopted, nor obviously for 2025. As legally the Jury must approve a budget passed by the Board, it has not done so for the past two years, regardless that it did pass a budget for the library system.

And there were problems on the front end as well. Legally, a board is comprised of five to seven members (unless statute makes a specific exception) with five-year overlapping terms. However, the 2024 meeting specified that all 12 jurors were the Board – a clear violation of the law. Previously to that, since 2016 the Jury had placed some of its own on the Board, but as late as early 2020 five members of the then seven members were non-jurors. Then the Jury systematically began dumping the five citizen members through 2023 and replaced them with jurors until all members were jurors, by the last meeting of 2023 which was Nov. 15 having dialed back membership to five.

Yet even if the Jury – which had “suspended” the ordinance that established the Board even though statute says the governing authority “shall” (that is, not optionally) have a board if there is a public library – had kept it at five to seven members, all jurors, it still broke the law because there was no formal appointment of new members as one each per year of the five jurors who had been duly appointed rolled off in 2024 and 2025. Technically, the Board has at this time three open, unfilled position – one of which occurred immediately at the 2024 meeting because even as the Jury alleged in its previous November meeting to have appointed all 12 jurors to the Board (but wasn’t it suspended?), already-appointed member Democrat former Juror Charles Gray had lost reelection with his board term running through September, 2026.

At least a couple of years ago the Jury stopped one of its legal breaches. For several months, previous parish administrator Butch Ford had served as director, even though state law disqualified that. This violation was rectified with the hiring of the present director Felesha Sweeney.

Laws aside, the disappearance of the Board also violates the parish’s own library policy and procedures. These demand Board participation, in hiring of the director and being informed of all new hires, and for grievance resolution.

So, the summarize, at present the Jury is violating the law in five ways:

• It claims that all 12 jurors are Board members, when the law allows seven voting members at most.
• The Jury, which must appoint board members, has failed to appoint three of the five to seven members, and counting, to the Board.
• The Board, which must meet at least annually, did not meet in the most recent year.
• The Board has not elected officers in the most recent year, which it must do annually.
• The Board, which must present a library budget to the Jury annually, failed to approve library budgets for the past two years.

Recall Luke 16:10. If citizens can’t trust the Jury in a small matter like this, how can they trust jurors in large matters? Jurors take an oath to uphold the law, but unfortunately this is just another proof that the Jury will act lawlessly when it thinks it can, although it can take a first step towards reassuring citizens that they can trust it by bringing the parish into compliance on the matter.