[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish president announces layoffs, blames predecessor

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish president announces layoffs, blames predecessor

Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 10:55 PM     Updated: Tuesday, April 17,
2012, 10:55 PM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Speaking to the St. Bernard Parish Council and public on Tuesday, St.
Bernard Parish President Dave Peralta used his pulpit to scold former Parish
President Craig Taffaro administration's practices. He said "credit card
abuse" is under review by state authorities.

Peralta, who beat Taffaro in last fall's election and took office in
January, also announced the layoff of 20 employees, saying they are
necessary to save money because of the Taffaro administration's wasteful
spending and its "grossly inflated" revenue projections. He said more
layoffs must soon come, additionally blaming the Taffaro administration for
hiring too many people and promoting more employees than the parish budget
could afford.

"It has become abundantly clear that there has been significant
mismanagement and waste of government funds occurring over the past several
years," Peralta said.

Alluding to parish credit card transactions reported by The Times-Picayune
last month on meals and possible personal items, Peralta said such abuse has
"been discovered at the highest levels of the previous administration, and
is currently being investigated by the appropriate authorities." Peralta
said the state Attorney General's Office picked up copies of all Taffaro
administration credit card records.

Taffaro late Tuesday issued a statement, but did not specifically address
the charges.

"During my service as a St. Bernard Parish councilman as well as the St.
Bernard parish president, the focus of my role and that of the team members
of my administration was to respond to and rebuild a devastated community,"
Taffaro said in an email. "As a team, we overcame enormous obstacles,
established productive partnerships with local, state, and federal agencies
and set St. Bernard Parish on a course toward a succesful recovery."

"As a member of the State of Louisiana team, I remain committed to St.
Bernard's continued success," he added.

The Parish Council did not discuss the allegations raised by Peralta and
quickly moved on to other subjects, but Council President Guy McInnis said
following the meeting that "we are going to need to examine the budget as we
go forward."

"We now are coming up through April and our sales taxes are in a downward
trend, and we are going to have to review our expenses," McInnis said. "We
have a lot of hard work ahead of us, and we knew that coming in."

Regarding the layoffs, Peralta said that "while it pains me to have to let
employees go, downsizing the workforce by 20 employees will save us
approximately $500,000 annually in salaries and benefits."

He said that January sales tax revenues came in $847,000 short of
projections, and that February was $941,000 short. Peralta added that by
year's end the parish likely will find itself in an about $6 million hole
because of the inflated revenue projections that were partly, mistakenly
based on commercial activity generated by the BP oil spill response.

"Obviously, our financial situation is not sustainable," Peralta said.

He says that basing things on the BP oil spill's windfall sales tax revenues
led to unsustainable expansion of parish operations and personnel. And he
accused the Taffaro administration of not engaging in like-for-like FEMA
projects that is now likely going to cause FEMA to "deobligate" millions of
dollars that the parish has no money to pay back.

In addition to the layoffs, Peralta said that 25 employee cell phones have
been eliminated, 10 take-home employee vehicles and "a number of 'executive'
insurance plans were eliminated from our personnel costs." The "executive
insurance plans" refers to how Taffaro and many of his department directors
were subsidized for insuring dependants, allowing them to do so without
additional personal expense, according to Peralta.

"I personally consider Taffaro, an elected official taking that executive
insurance plan, illegal as I think the charter limits the executive to the
salary they receive without added benefits."

Peralta also said that the "subsidized gap insurance," which reduces
employees' out-of-pocket insurance deductibles, "will shortly be eliminated
from our personnel costs."

He said based on the shortfalls that the administration and Parish Council
must now "consider new ways of generating revenue" and mentioned possibly
increasing user fees for water, sewer, sanitation or fire services, adding
"some tough decisions will ultimately have to be made.