[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish's spending of BP oil spill money detailed

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish's spending of BP oil spill money detailed
Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 

St. Bernard Parish has paid its chief administrative officer nearly $23,000
in overtime costs out of a $1 million BP-funded parish account to offset
Gulf oil spill response costs, records show.

In all, since shortly after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion
and spill, the parish has spent more than $73,000 from its BP account to pay
overtime expenses for parish employees connected to the oil spill, the
records show. 

The parish has also used money from the account to buy $2,500 worth of Nikon
cameras, nearly $4,000 in polo shirts and T-shirts to identify parish
employees, and has spent more than $12,000 to pay for helicopter use by
Parish President Craig Taffaro and other parish officials.

Parish CAO has 497 hours of overtime so far


Financial information the parish provided in response to a public records
request shows that Col. David Dysart, the parish's interim chief
administrative officer and director of homeland security, has logged 497
hours of overtime since the beginning of the oil spill, which would equate
to an average workday of 14 to 15 hours, seven days a week, in the eight
weeks since the spill. 

The records show 43 parish employees have received overtime based on oil
spill work, ranging from Dysart's $22,702 to an employee who received
$22.50.

Taffaro agreed that the overtime hours are high, but said, "We're putting in
an awful lot of hours." As parish president, Taffaro said he ultimately
decides who receives overtime, and how much.

The two top recipients of BP-paid overtime, Dysart and parish Recreation
Director John Rahaim, are both salaried employees who would normally not be
eligible for overtime. However, Taffaro said salaried employees are eligible
to receive overtime during a state of emergency, but that it is paid at the
employees' regular pay rate, as opposed to time-and-a-half.

Other expenses incurred by the parish, such as the near-daily helicopter use
by Taffaro and other parish officials, have been noted by some in the parish
who have seen Taffaro arrive via helicopter at church and at Val Riess Park
in Chalmette, where he threw out the first pitch at a recent Little League
baseball game.

Taking helicopter from command center to church

Taffaro noted the distance between the various events and the parish oil
spill command posts in explaining the helicopter use. "For the record, it
was a matter of having to be in two places at one time, because of our
command operations at Breton Sound Marina," he said, referring to the marina
in rural Hopedale where much of the parish's oil spill response activities
are based.

When he arrived at church a few weeks ago in the helicopter, Taffaro said he
was stopping there on the way to two other meetings. It didn't make sense to
go from church to New Orleans, for the meeting, and then back down to
Hopedale, he said.

"It wasn't that I left to go to church, and just out of convenience I flew,"
Taffaro said. "They didn't pick me up in Meraux at my house, in my
backyard."

Overall, Taffaro said the parish has been "pretty judicious" in using BP's
$1 million initial outlay, noting that other coastal parishes have already
drawn down the initial $1 million and have needed to replenish the sum. 

"If all we were doing was paying salaries, and overtime, we'd probably have
a pretty good amount of time before we ran out of that million dollars," he
said.

Dysart did not respond to a phone call seeking comment about the amount of
overtime he has logged since the beginning of the spill. His position as
interim CAO pays an annual salary of $80,000. Other top recipients included
Rahaim, who logged $8,652 and more than 300 hours of overtime; and John
Frank, the assistant director of finance, who received $6,210 and logged 197
hours. 

BP advances the money

Unlike a natural disaster such as a hurricane, where the federal government
would eventually reimburse overtime and administrative costs -- often after
negotiations -- the setup BP has with local governments is a real-time
payment that is processed within days or weeks.

Taffaro said that any money that is advanced to the parish, for
administrative costs or other uses related to the spill, "will certainly be
tracked" by BP and its lawyers. He likened the parish government advances to
claims being paid: As the disaster unfolds, the parish may tack on more
claims based on damage and expenses its incurs.

"They're not 'giving' as much as they're advancing what they're going to get
as a claim anyway," Taffaro said. "At some point in the settlement process,
BP will certainly say, 'We advanced this money because this is certainly
part of a legitimate claim.'"


Cameras and ink cartridges

Other major costs incurred by the parish include more than $4,000 worth of
printers, ink cartridges and toner that were described as "office supplies
for oil spill workers in Breton Sound." Also, the parish spent $2,415 in BP
money for 15 Nikon digital cameras to "verify oil intrusion during oil
recovery process caused by BP." And another large payment went to buy 112
St. Bernard Parish-emblazoned golf shirts and 600 T-shirts with parish
logos. 

"The shirts were bought in order to identify who was operating, because
there are so many organizations functioning in the command area," Taffaro
said. "The shirts were bought to identify who was part of the parish
operations."

Even though the office equipment, cameras and shirts were purchased with BP
money, Taffaro said he does not expect the company to want them back.

"I guess technically BP could say, 'Give me the camera back,' or 'I want to
collect all those T-shirts or office shirts,' but that's not what they're
trying to do."