Travel expenses divide parish council

The April 7 Parish Council meeting had a few more tense moments over the issue of travel reimbursements.
The council voted against increasing the allowance to finance District 7 Council member Craig Gregory’s attendance at the NACo convention in Charlotte N. C., July 10-13. Gregory, a vice-chair of one committee and sitting member of others, has met resistance over the cost of NACo-related travel in the past.
With three council members absent, the only vote in favor of providing the reimbursements to Gregory was Council chairperson and District 2 member Lisa Nelson.
“It’s just sad that it has come to this,” Nelson said after the vote.
She said that Gregory was trying “to get things done for the parish” but that “certain people were dividing the council.”
In February the council passed an ordinance that allotted travel expense funds equally between members. Absent from the ordinance was any avenue for members not planning to use their travel budget to transfer their funds to another member. Parish Legal Council, Chester Cedars, advised that transfers of that kind needed to be expressly stated in the ordinance. If transfers were to be allowed, he said, another ordinance to that effect would need to be passed.
In a telephone interview, Nelson told the Teche News that Gregory was working hard for the parish at NACo and producing real results. Opponents contend that the ordinance passed in February should be observed. The specific issue of transfers was tabled until the next meeting due to the absence of Cedars. Gregory said that he would go to the convention at his own expense if he had to.
Another on-going issue of particular importance to Nelson involves the pay schedule changes for parish employees. Proposed revisions to Rule 4 of the Parish Government Rules and Procedures Manual, while providing that no employee will receive lower pay due to the change, will make some employees worse off in the long run. This, she said, would happen because it would affect an employee’s progress through the schedule of pay ranges and stages.
Nelson asserts that the problem results from the fact that the revisions were not made when they should have been, in 2009.