[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish payroll contains family ties

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish payroll contains family ties

Published: Sunday, June 10, 2012, 7:00 AM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

In an effort to balance the budget, St. Bernard Parish President Dave
Peralta has eliminated nearly 100 parish jobs since taking office Jan. 10.
The layoffs included his stepdaughter. But other members of the Peralta
family have fared much better. 

Peralta's wife, Sharon Peralta, a parish paralegal, received a $5,575 raise
the day her husband took office. And his nephew, Zachary Peralta, a
mechanic, is one of 37 people hired since his "Uncle D" became parish
president. Peralta acknowledged that having relatives on the payroll is a
"touchy subject," especially given St. Bernard government's dire financial
situation. But Peralta and his chief administrative officer, Jerry Graves
Jr., contend it is inevitable in a parish full of family ties.

"Look, we always face that down here. St. Bernard Parish is really such a
small place and we have so many employees that are related. You name the
combination, we have it. We have husbands and wives and father and sons.
Everyone is related in some kind of way, with some type of friendship with
one another," Graves said. "If we had to eliminate anyone who is friends
with someone in a high position, or related to someone in a high position,
we'd have to get rid of tons of folks."

A bride in the workplace

On Jan. 10, the day Peralta took office and his then-fiancee received her
$5,575 bump to $44,031, Peralta wrote a letter to Graves, giving Graves "the
final authority regarding all matters and decisions" relating to his
then-fiancee's "employment and personnel matters." Peralta told Graves, "I
desire to avoid even the slightest appearance of impropriety, conflict of
interest, favoritism or other ethical issues," adding that Graves was never
to discuss Schaefer's parish employment with him.

Graves said Peralta's wife, who at that time was still his fiancee and went
by the last name Schaefer, had come to him "at the beginning of 2012 to
complain that despite having earned her (paralegal) degree and performing
the duties of a paralegal, she was still considered a legal secretary."

"It's a hairy subject, I know," Graves said. "But I had a conversation with
Sharon about what she was doing at the courthouse and she said she was still
classified as a legal secretary but she was the only paralegal and she was
being paid less than some people were paid just to be secretaries. And it
seemed she was doing the bulk of the work. So, I had her supervisor write up
a report for me detailing what she had been doing. Of course, I didn't
discuss any of this with Dave. ... It's an awkward situation."

On Jan. 4, 2012, her then-supervisor, parish Public Defender Thomas
Gernhauser, confirmed to Graves that Schaefer had taken on "additional
duties and responsibilities," including paralegal work, research for
attorneys and assisting attorneys in felony and misdemeanor court, all
spelled out in a contract signed by Schaefer and Gernhauser on Jan. 21,
2011.

"Upon reviewing her personnel file and communicating with Gernhauser, I
determined that it would be fair to officially promote her to the position
of Paralegal," Graves recently wrote in an email to a reporter. "I worked
with Human Resources to determine how much paralegals were making in other
parishes, and after reviewing the salaries in Jefferson Parish and
Plaquemines Parish, I decided to use the average salary of paralegals in
Plaquemines Parish in order to determine whether Ms. Schaefer's new job
title would also warrant giving her a raise."

On Jan. 10, Graves ended up raising her salary from $38,456.60 to
$44,031.75, the average salary for Plaquemines Parish's paralegals.

Peralta and Graves say that, at that time, neither of them was aware of the
financial hole the parish was in.

"We thought we had a year and three months to deal with a budget issue, but
when the finance department got a hold of records that (former Parish
President Craig) Taffaro had held back, we began to see a different story,"
Peralta said.

Peralta said that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have ordered
that no staff members receive raises. But he said that he isn't going to
take back any employees' raises now because "these people have earned them,
and they were underpaid before."

Graves said a few people received raises at the beginning of year because
they had been placed in higher positions or their duties had grown "last
year but had not yet received a new salary or pay commensurate with their
new position or workload." He admitted, though, that after the most recent
round of layoffs in May that many people are doing more work with the same
pay.

Separation of work and family

Peralta said last week that he was unaware that his wife had ever asked
Graves for a raise or that she eventually had received one until a
Times-Picayune reporter asked questions about it, prompting Graves to speak
with Peralta about the situation.

Peralta said he and his wife, who were married March 31, keep their finances
completely separate. And due to the earlier agreement with Graves and a
similar understanding with his wife, neither had ever discussed it with him,
Peralta said.

While Peralta said he received a verbal opinion from the Louisiana Board of
Ethics before taking office, he sent a letter to the board on March 8 asking
for a written opinion on whether Schaefer could continue working for parish
government after they married. Last week, Peralta received a letter from
Aneatra Boykin, an attorney for the ethics board, stating that given his
wife's long tenure with the parish before he became parish president, "the
Code of Governmental Ethics will not prohibit Ms. Schaefer from continuing
her employment with St. Bernard Parish after her marriage to you."

Sharon Peralta was hired by parish government on June 11, 2007, by
then-Parish Attorney Dave Paycee as a legal secretary. Peralta at that time
was the parish's chief administrative officer under Taffaro, the man he beat
in a bloody campaign last fall.

While state ethics laws prohibit an "immediate family member" of an agency
head from being employed in that agency, there is an exception that allows a
public employee, having served for more than one year, to continue in that
employment when a member of the immediate family becomes head of the agency.

The law defines immediate family members as his children, the spouses of his
children, his brothers and sisters, spouses of his brothers and sisters, his
parents, his spouse (although the present exception applies), and the
parents of his spouse. The law does not relate to nephews and does not
specifically mention stepchildren, although Peralta was not yet married to
Schaefer when the parish hired her daughter, Heather Bertucci.

Sharon Peralta said last week that she had asked Taffaro for a raise after
receiving her associate degree and certificate in paralegal studies from
Chalmette's Nunez Community College on May 22, 2008, but that she never
received one.

By May 2008, she and Peralta, Taffaro's No. 2 in parish government, had
started dating.

Also around that time, Taffaro and Peralta had a falling out, with Taffaro
calling Peralta incompetent in his job and Peralta claiming Taffaro was a
micromanager. Taffaro asked Peralta to resign and when he refused, Taffaro
fired him in September 2008.

After that, Sharon Peralta said her relationship with Taffaro became more
tenuous and she decided not to continue pushing the raise issue, as she said
she was fearful for her job.

In 2010, she was transferred to the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse, where she
worked under Gernhauser before she was transferred back to the parish
government complex on April 30 to work as a paralegal for the current two
parish attorneys, William McGoey and Jeanne Juneau.

In her new position, she also works alongside a legal assistant, Mandy
Bourgeois, who was hired on Jan. 20. Mandy Bourgeois is the daughter of
Donny Bourgeois, Peralta's friend and campaign manger. Donny Bourgeois was
brought aboard on Jan. 10 as one of Peralta's executive assistants.

Mandy Bourgeois makes $20,620 and her father brings in $70,000. While her
father's salary is $20,000 more than was paid to Karen Turni-Bazile, the
woman he technically replaced, his job duties are much different.

Despite his executive assistant job title, Donny Bourgeois leads the
parish's recovery efforts and in that role his salary is entirely reimbursed
by FEMA, Graves said.

Other relatives

A week into taking office on Jan. 10, Peralta hired his nephew, Zachary, as
a mechanic making $11.87 an hour. He is the son of Peralta's youngest
brother. At that time, the parish had only two mechanics out of its 515
employees, and Zachary Peralta is currently the only mechanic who holds
certificates in certain specialty areas, one from Nissan for car repairs and
one from Robinair for air conditioning.

"I knew we needed a mechanic and I knew the kid was a great one, so I called
and asked him," Peralta said.

When asked whether it was ethical to call and hire his nephew when there are
other mechanics also looking for work, Peralta responded that "the law tells
me who I shouldn't hire and a nephew is not one of them."

"When you are in a small community, why wouldn't you hire people who you are
friends with and you know are qualified and you know are loyal to you and
why would you exclude people just because you were friends before and you
respect them?" he said. "Isn't it unfair that just because his last name is
Peralta that he can't work here?"

"I also hired a lot of people who aren't my relatives," he added.

But he also did hire his stepdaughter, Bertucci, on March 5 as a clerical
specialist in public works with a salary of $10.78 an hour. She was not
Peralta's stepdaughter at that time, as Peralta didn't marry her mother
until March 31.

Bertucci was laid off May 23 with about 40 other parish workers.

"We hired her to help out with water and sewer complaints, but just like the
other 10 or so clerical specialists that were let go, we realized that
someone else could double up and fill that duty," Graves said.

Bertucci was one of five employees, whose salaries together totaled about
$115,000, who were hired this year and fired this year. Besides Bertucci,
they consisted of a recovery department accounting clerk, and three
recreation department employees.

Last week, Bertucci found a new job at a local restaurant.

"And I had nothing to do with getting her the job, I'm proud to say,"
Peralta said.

St. Bernard Parish government also faces an additional expense this year
that has nothing to do with hiring or firing.

In 2010, the St. Bernard Parish Council decided to peg the parish
president's salary to other parish salaries that are governed by state law
and decreed that beginning in 2012 the parish president's salary would
become the average salary of the parish's judges, district attorney, clerk
of court, sheriff and assessor. At that time, then-Parish Council Chairman
Wayne Landry said he believed the raise was prudent in order to bring St.
Bernard's presidential salary more in line with surrounding parishes and to
attract qualified candidates who might otherwise be put off by the
compensation.

The new calculation, which is adjusted only at the beginning of each
four-year term, means Peralta earns $129,728 a year, compared with Taffaro's
$70,000.

Peralta makes no apologies for his salary.

"I didn't ask for it," Peralta said "And I took both financial and personal
risks to get elected to this position."

Peralta said he often works 17- or 18-hour days, adding "I haven't even
taken a honeymoon yet."

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch at timespicayune.com or
504.826.3321.



C 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.