Metropolitan Council - Regular Meeting

This completely You think I need you? Yes, the ball. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Council Chamber of East Baton Rouge Parish. Good to see all of you watching our broadcast this afternoon. And of course, we are streaming at brla.gov. We're on Cox. We're on YouTube, Facebook Live, we're on AT&T. And it's just good to have all

of you as a part of our government. At this time, here is the mayor, president, pro Tim of East Baton Rouge Parish, Councilman Brandon Noel. announcement. Thank you, Dennis. Welcome everybody to Metropolitan Council meeting this Wednesday, May 13th, 2026. We're going to call the meeting to order. Ashley, do we have a quorum? We have a quorum.

Today, we're going to have an invocation led by Pastor Eric Williams of Beacon Light Baptist Church, followed by the pledge by Avery Coleman of Clayborn Elementary. Thank you so much. Let us all pray together. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this day that you have made. And God, we shall continue to give you glory and honor because you're worthy of it. Father, we thank you now for your presence in this place on today. We ask now, God, that everything shall be done decently and in order. Father, I pray now that in this space we're in on today, in the next few minutes and hours, that God, that your presence will be seen and felt, but also God, we ask now that unity that we'll come on one accord. I pray even now for these council members that God, you will allow them to make sober and precise good decisions. And God, I know that the people will be blessed and encouraged for this meeting on today. We give you glory. We give you honor. And we thank you in advance for what is about to take place on today. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen.

You can go ahead step to the mic for the pledge. I ple I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic of which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Item one, approval and adoption of the minutes of the Metropolitan Council meeting of April 22nd and the April 22nd, 2026 and the special Metropolitan Council meeting of April 30th, 2026 by Council Administrative Treasurer. Have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Amarosa. Second by Councilman Goay. Any opposition? Motion carries. Ashley, can you please read the introductions?

Section 2.12, introductions number two, authorizing the mayor president on behalf of the Baters Police Department to amend the 2026 current expense budget to appropriate an amount not to exceed $1,700,000 from the police department fund balance for the purchase of essential police vehicles by the police chief. Number three, authorizing the mayor president to execute a cooperative endeavor agreement between the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge and the Bayou Fountain Economic Development District for the purpose of promoting economic development in the Bayou Fountain Economic Development District and providing for related matters by Councilman Jen Rocka. Number four, authorizing the finance director to refund sewer user fees paid in excess due of an erroneous billing of sewer user fees on a meter serving and irrigation system in the amount of $172,7523 to Baton Rouge GSA LLC for the period January 2023 through March 2026 by the finance director. Number five, amending title 12 nuisances chapter 6 miscellaneous section 12 col 405 maintenance of property so as to provide for an increase in the penalties and fines for violations by the development director. Number six, authorizing the mayor president to execute a professional services agreement with Stantech Consulting Inc. in the amount of $300,000 to provide engineering services and appropriate interest earning from the capital improvement fund for said purpose by transportation and drainage director. Number seven, a resolution approving an annual payment in L of tax to the sheriff of East Baton Rouge Parish in an amount not to exceed $12,281 in accordance with the memorandum of understanding between the Capital Area Finance Authority and GF Coast Housing Partnership LLC for the Howell Senior Village Project by Councilman Anthony Kenny. Condemnation introductions number eight, Marie uh Mon'nique Marie Cornbacher, 434 Lorie Burgess Avenue, Council District 10, Coleman. Number nine, Rodney Harris, 1376 Daniel Webster

Street, Council District 10, Coleman. Number 10, Michael Thomas, 2226 and 2230 Maryland Street, Council District 10, Coleman. Number 11, Charlie Fields, 3878 Uncus Street, Council District 10, Coleman. Number 12, Dolores Duce, 4788 Monarch Avenue, Council District 7, Harris. Number 13, Robert Rogers and Marvis Labbuff Rogers Rogers. 48 4989 Moheagen Street, Council District 7, Harris. Number 14, BRH Consultants Incorporated. 7272 Burbank Drive, Council District 12, Rocka. Number 15, Baton Rouge Hotelers LLC. 10920 me Road, Council District 8, Amaroso, Adjudicated Property Introductions. Number 16, lot 367, subdivision bell fair homesomes, council district 7, Harris. All items require reading have been read and a motion to introduce all items is in order.

Was that a motion? Motion by Councilwoman Hudson, second by Councilwoman Emorosa. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. All right. Go to your separate sheet for condemnations. I'm going to read them as presented first with the recommendations. and then I'm I'm going to get recommendations from you all. Then we'll have a public hearing on the items. Recommendations from DPW are to proceed with items 36, 37, 38, 42, 44, and 45. 30 days on item 43 and to delete items 39, 40, and 41. Yes.

Just a point of information, prom, if I missed this, I'm sorry. Does everybody know that we got to manually get your attention to speak? Is the machine's not working? No. Okay. Whole system down. I'm aware now. Okay.

Just raise hands, I guess. Okay. Let's see. Dis, we've got 30 days on items 44 and 45. Councilwoman 30 days on items 44 and 45. 43 was already 30 days. You want 44 to be 30 days, too? Council

90 days on 37. Okay, got it.

38 and 39 68 39's to be deleted. You want to Yep, that's fine. Leave it at deleted. That's fine. Yes. Okay. 38 would be you want to do both of them are showing great progression. I mean, I'm open to deleting them both, but we don't have a 60-day. We can do 30 on 90. Do 90 on 38 and 39.

Okay. Councilwoman Harris 45 proceed. Okay. Anybody else? Anyone wish to speak on these items? See none. All right. We're going to proceed with items 36, 42, and 45. 30 days for items 43 and 44. 90 days, items 37 and 39. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 37 and 38 and delete items 39, 40, and 41. We have a motion. Motion by Councilman Go, second by Councilman Dun Jr. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. All right. Item 46, amend the 2026 pay plan for the classified, unclassified, non-classified contract, fire and police employees of the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge, adopted by ordinance 1972 dated 12925 so as to implement changes to the classified classified pay plan effective June 27th, 2026 by Mayor President, finance director, and human resources director. Anyone here wishing to speak on these items? Yeah. And if you signed up, we're not going to be able to see it. So, just come on up, state your name, and y'all can form a line behind the first speaker.

Good afternoon, Ben Klein. Uh, I'm in support of payraises uh for all deserving city parish employees, but I'm also in support of responsible stewardship of taxpayer money. To that end, my comments are directed at the need for reassurances that the city parish has appropriately accounted for all risks for the repayment of federal programs due to what has been deemed poor oversight andor controls. Recent news reports and even a 2024 internal audit highlighted specific failures in the administration governance of this city parish relating to federal grants. particularly the prior administration. Examples of those include approximately $480,000 associated with the Hughes Consultant Group, approximately 980,000 for the Scotlandville housing project, more specifically known as the Housing for Heroes, approximately 980,000 for the mayor's healthy city initiative, which received federal grant funding. the audit in 2024 that I mentioned in relation to the office of community development and the home investment partnership program and community development block grant program had findings that it appeared that the audit only looked at approximately six of the 382 contracts that were awarded. That audit doesn't make clear to me in the report that the total dollar value of the contracts that audited resulted in what total but the total grant amounts were approximately $240 million. Considering only six of the 382 contracts were examined is clear that there was only a small sample size. However, that sample size identified the following and this is a

conclusion from the internal audit. The processes for selecting partners, issuing awards, and processing payments lacked strong internal controls to ensure the following. Payments are accurate, supported, authorized, and in accordance with contract terms and program regulations. Performance by sub recipients is monitored in compliance with departmental policy and federal regulations. And applications, projects, and applicants are evaluated in compliance with departmental policy and federal regulation. The office of community development staff apparently did not evaluate supporting the documentation for the relevance of all the payment requests. All payment were not processed and approved and muted with levels of the proper review. However, some of the review did not note the exceptions listed above which I which I stated and also the offic comments and two final comments are the public should be entitled to responses to the question that of those three projects that I mentioned before that appear to have not followed federal guidelines. What has the city parish done as far as setting aside the necessary funds to repay the federal grant funds that have been spent? And more importantly, what has the city parish done as far as Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Good evening. Name's Robert Joiner. Um here to speak in favor of the uh pay amendment that's before y'all today. Um, currently the the rates we hire our employees are at, we hire laborers for $1050 an hour. We hire CDL drivers for $150 an hour. We hire building inspectors and complaint or uh complaint investigators for $1475 an hour. That's less than Walmart's paying people. That's less than Amazon's paying people. We've lost people to those companies. We've lost people to other municipalities. We've lost people to our own contractors that we're paying to do the same jobs for these employees. Um, they deserve to be a fair be paid a fair wage to be doing the job that they're doing. And we haven't caught we haven't caught up with inflation. We haven't caught up with the cost of living for for any of these positions. And it's it's really needed for our guys. Um, I I have some concerns about the 2027 budget and how this fits into it, how this $8 million fits into the budget that we were cutting positions and freezing positions on for the 2026 budget. Um, it's been kind of unclear in the public eye of how that's planned to be addressed, but um, you know, if we can make it work out, this we we keep losing employees. we keep having less and less permanent employment on the civil service side. Um I know there was a big talk about the pension program. You know, the police department was upside down and they got what they needed. Um I can tell you there's probably more retirees of the city parish pension program than there are permanent employees working for the city parish currently. So I mean that needs to be rectified some way or another. And the only way we can do that is to keep keep the employees that we have. you know, we keep we keep losing people. We have vacant positions, then we freeze the vacant position. So, if we can at least keep the employees that we have, be able to rehire people to be able to attract good talent into the parish, that's step one of fixing the upside

down problem that we have here. So, thank you all for your time.

Good evening. Well, I'm back again. And when I looked on the item, the agenda item, I didn't see constable. I saw everything else, but I thought I'm included with everybody else. So, that's a good thing. And before I get started, I just want to thank the mayor for even bringing this back up and even saying that he will be for making sure constables and everybody get pay increases within the city. Uh, I've been here before. We've been doing this since I think March. And I just want to let y'all know that a lot has been said, a lot has been done from March until now. They said constables wasn't law enforcement. They said constables didn't deserve the pay raise. They said constables didn't do the same work that other agencies do. And I'm hoping today we can get past what has happened in March and before now. And I'm asking this council to please look at the men and women of the constable's office, look at the people in the city of Baton Rouge, and include all of us and pay increases to make sure we can keep good employees. Just like the gentleman just said, when I hire people, they may stay 6 months, but then when they find out they can go somewhere else and make more money, guess what? I'm losing those people. So then that means I have to rehire somebody else, retrain somebody else, and get them up and running. And then the next thing you know, when time comes, they go, they know they can go somewhere else and make more money, so they leave. Uh, y'all see constables every day in the community. Y'all see constables at the council meetings. Y'all see them in the building. Y'all see them in the community serving papers. They do the work. They do the work. They love what they do. And I tell everybody, there's no amount that you can give a law enforcement in the city of Baton Rouge, nowhere in the United States that will even be able to compensate for what they do. There's no amount. And when you do law enforcement, it's from the heart. It's a compassion. It's not for money. I promise you, it's not for money because if it was for money, none of us would do it. None of us would do it. And I can tell you, I was on the phone with Chief Leuff a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way to get my hair did and uh they had an accident and I was like, I'm running late. I cannot turn around. But my heart wouldn't let me go past a lady and a

baby in an accident in the middle of the highway. And I stopped. I got out of my truck and I assisted assist assisted lady until BRPD showed up. But that's to show you that we all work together. We're all one team. And I'm hoping that this council will be one team tonight. One Baton Rouge and let's get this accomplished. I thank y'all and I'm just praying that this vote go in the right direction tonight. Thank y'all. Good evening. I'm Alfreda Tilman Bester. I sent a letter in advance to let you all know that I am in support of this increase for the employees of East Baton Rouge Parish. I don't have to tell you guys how hard they work. I don't have to tell you how um inadequate their compensation is because you know all of that. But I was here on April 22nd and I appreciate that you have honored your commitment to bring this matter back up to give due consideration to every employee within East Baton Rouge Parish City Council uh Metro East Baton Rouge Parish. But particularly I want to talk about the constable's office because they are our remaining law enforcement agency. I am an attorney and I have worked in uh I have litigated in the city court. Those are the people who protect our judges. Those are the people who protect our litigants and they also protect those of us who litigate there as lawyers. They deserve that compensation and they deserve something that is equivalent to what we gave to our other law

enforcement officers on April 22nd. I would love to see them receive um equitable compensation. We we we have the ability to do it. We have the study that shows that it can be done um you know and be recurring dollars. And I ask that you do this as a gesture of good faith to all of the people of East Baton Rouge Parish such that we will increase the morale of these employees who are often who often feel demoralized because they have to work for that 1050 or less per hour. So, thank you for your uh your consideration of this uh provision that allows for them to be adequately paid. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, council. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Cindy Pennington. I've been with the city 28 years, and uh this really not going to help me that much, right? I'm retiring, but it's not about me. Um, um, if y'all don't mind, I'd like to ask my traffic engineering employees to stand. Uh, there are more here, but I think we're out of chairs. So, these are the employees that keep our city moving safely and efficiently. They manage the signals. They respond to hazards. They coordinate school zones. They improve traffic flow, but mainly they reduce accidents. And that's important to our city. The effects of every resident who goes to work, brings their kids to school and cause EMS. It's on these people. They work emergencies. They work hazard situations without extra pay. You know, when we close the city buildings, they come to work. They don't get extra pay. They just come to work and they do what they need to do. They work ice storms, hurricanes, floods. $12 an hour. $12 an hour is what we pay people to get in a bucket truck in the air in the rain and work on electricity. That's not okay. Um I've seen some of these guys get in their personal boat during the flood and go turn the power off at the signals. I've seen them I've been out with them to put out barricades and a tornado goes overhead and they're like, "Oh, Miss Cindy, it's all right. We're going to be all right. Are we?" It's It's kind of scary. I've seen some of them sleep at the office for 10 days under their desk. That's just what they do. They're very dedicated. But despite the critical role they play, they're underpaid. We have challenges in retaining experienced staff and attracting qualified applicants. I'll tell you this, two weeks, in two weeks, I've lost four people and two more by the end of the week. One guy came in and said, "I can't do it. I can't I can't feed my family on

this." And I said, "Wait till after the vote. Let's talk again. I probably will lose six people in two weeks. Only have 44 positions. It's more than 10%. It's um yeah, I've seen engineers come and go. In 10 years, we've gone through 10 engineers. We need engineers to do the contracts, to do to meet with other engineers, with the state, with the feds, those kind of things. We need the people." Um, those engineers left for $30,000 to $100,000 more per year. It's a big gap. I've been to other traffic engineering in other cities. They were they were doing great like we are. We're doing great, but they lost their support and they they couldn't pay their people and now they're not. We don't want to be there. We want to keep striving for better and stay at the top. We continue to deliver results and despite de the higher demands we've done more when asked and a fair pay raise would recognize our employees professionalism, dedication and value. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Trevor Heap. I'm one of the traffic engineers for the city. I've been working here for eight years. I am a dedicated employee. I'm also serving three years at the as the Louisiana chapter American Public Works Association. Um, public service is deeply devoted in my life. My mother retired from the city after almost a 40-year career, but I want to continue that commitment and I want to build my career here. However, it's becoming increasingly difficult to justify that if the pay does not change. I've received several job offers within the past year and I'm very highly considering taking them if something doesn't change. Um, over the years I've had the opportunity to work with multiple other public works departments within Louisiana through APWA and throughout this nation and other states. I've seen struggling departments. I've seen thriving departments and it's very clear what the thriving departments are doing. They're allowing them to get promoted. They're allowing them to have payraises. Uh, in traffic engineering alone, we've lost eight engineers just in my time here. In eight years, I've seen eight engineers leave, all for higher pay. In the past month, we've lost several employees. And as Cindy said earlier, it's going to continue. Public works employees are essential to the public safety and function of this community. They maintain our roads, our drainage systems, our traffic signals, and critical infrastructure. During storms, emergencies, disasters, they are often the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave. That reality is shown now. Right now in the Senate and in the House, there is a Senate Bill 164 that will expand the definition of first responders to include public uh works employees.

Baton Rouge, you have the opportunity now to stay ahead of this movement and we can show our employees the value of the work they do and be responsible to do this every day. Tonight, I'm asking the Metro Council to approve support the payraises for the public work employees. Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the council. My name is Lloyd Permal, spelled P E R M A U L. I come before you as the executive director and the international vice president of ASME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, representing 1.4 million workers, men and women across this country, including the dedicated public servants in the city of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge, over 3,000 workers. On Wednesday, April 22nd, I attended your council meeting and listened closely as the mayor's office presented its plan regarding employee compensation. It was made clear that funding exists to provide raises for city employees. However, the decision was made to grant police officers a 30% increase immediately, which everyone in this room and that was here supported it, including myself, raises for the police department. While the rest of the city workforce has a was asked to wait until today, May 13th, for consideration of their own raises. Let me be direct. The select approach to compensation is both inadequate and unjustified. During that meeting, several council members appropriately raised the question, why not provide raises for all public servants at the same time. That effort was shut down. It was also stated

that seven votes would be needed on this day, today, May 13, to approve raises for the remaining workforce. And based on that discussion, there appeared to be a lack of support for doing so. This is deeply disturbing. The workforce I represent, including not only general city employees, but also constables and others who serve in law enforcement capability capacities. I'm sorry. These includes these individuals contribute daily to the safety, stability and fundament functionality of this city. There is no rationale rational basis for excluding them on any public or any public servant from compensation adjustments that have already been deemed financially feasible. Public service is not a hierarchy of worth. Every employee, whether they wear a badge, maintain infrastructure, provide administrative support, or deliver essential services, plays a critical role in keeping Baton Rouge running.

To approve a substantial raise for one group while delaying and casting uncertainty over the rest, sends the raw message. It creates division where unity is needed and undermines morality across the workforce. I urge this council to correct this course. If the resources exist and by your own acknowledgement they do, then fairness demands that all public servants be treated with equal respect and urgency. Do not ask one group of workers to wait until another is rewarded. Do not place the burden of our certainty on those who have already given so much to the city. stand with all workers, act with fairness, and ensure that today every public servant in Baton Rouge, East Baton Rouge, is given the consideration and compensation they deserve. I thank you for your time.

Thank you. And look y'all, I just heads up. I'm going to give I know you can't see your clock like you typically would, so I'm going to let you know when you got 10 seconds left. Just try to start closing it up when I give you the warning. And I'm going to give everybody some grace though.

Good afternoon, council members. Eugene Smith. I'm a Department of Public Works complaint investigator. What a complaint investigator does is when your constituents make a complaint, a 31 complaint, whether it's their grass too high, the neighbor has trash in their yard, we are the ones who go out and take pictures of that, document that, and send that to the crews to get that handled. The entire department of public works is a critical department. The mayor campaigned on keeping Baton Rouge safe, clean, and running. Well, you can't do that without public safety employees, and you can't do that without DPW. It's going to be extremely hard. When a tree falls, is there does it make a sound? Yes, it does make a sound. And we're the ones to get to it. So, I ask that y'all can give these rays to the people that deserve it. I worked at city court before going to DPW and I felt safe because the first person you see when you walk in the door is a smiling constable saying, "Hey, how you doing?" And no cell phones. So, I have spoken with a few council members here and there saying, "Hey, uh, Mr. Eugene, I have a I have a constituent saying that their grass is too high." And I go out there and say, "Well, okay. We'll take a look at it." And I appreciate that because we are a team. We have to work as a team cuz Baton Rouge is not going to get better without all of us putting in. The maintenance worker who goes out and removes that down tree, cuts that down tree up, makes 1074 an hour. I have three kids and I had to survive on close to that when I first started. That is hard. Taking home 500 every two weeks. It's almost impossible. But I made it happen because I had a praying grandmother and a mother who didn't play. But we can't do it without y'all's help. Just like y'all need us if a if a

street floods, if a tree falls, we need y'all to back us cuz none of us can do it without the other. And that's all I have to say. Good afternoon. I'm back. Deputy Chief Sharon Douglas, Chief of Staff, Baton Rouge Police Department. I first want to sincerely thank Mayor President Sid Edwards and this council for approving the pay raise last month. We're truly truly grateful, but as you can see, we're not done yet. I personally know civilian employees within BRPD who work multiple jobs to survive. Some are working two full-time jobs because one paycheck is simply not enough to cover their basic needs. Yesterday, I read a report about poverty in East Baton Rouge Parish, which is when it truly hit me, clear as day, that some of our employees, the heartbeat of behindthe-scene operations, are likely living in poverty. I mean, let's be real. one of our civilian positions in the police department. Starts at $10.54 an hour. So, reading the report, it took me back a few years to a conversation that I had with the former civilian employee and she told me something that I will never forget. She told me coming to work was senseless and I didn't understand it. I automatically assumed that she just did not want to work. But she shared some wisdom with me. She told me her paycheck covered her gas for her to get to work and she paid someone to keep her child. That's what her paycheck covered. She said she made too much to qualify for assistance and getting a second job was not going to allow her to be there to truly raise her child. So after paying for fuel, after paying for

child care, there was just about nothing left to live. So she eventually quit because of no monetary gain for her. she could not afford her job. Very, very concerning and it breaks my heart. Every month, Chief Mars meets with a group of employees comprising of civilians, sworn, nonsworn personnel. And during those conversations, we would discuss payraises. In one of those meetings, one group were told that they were getting a raise. Another group were told, "We still working on it for you." How do you think that made them feel? I saw the dejection. I saw the disappointment on their faces, the confusion, the concern about what their value is to us. Chief Moss supports this item and I vehemently support this item because everyone deserves a raise, including the 73 civilian employees within the Baton Rouge Police Department who continues to ask us, "What about us?" And honestly, this is a very fair question because these 73 employees weren't a part of last month's pay raise at all. But they've remained patient. They've remained dedicated, but they can't cash in that patience and dedication to pay bills. So, every employee across City Parish matter. The work that they do matters. And right now, I'm asking you, at least seven of you, to vote in favor and see the people in every department who quietly carry the load behind the scenes for all of us. Thank you. Can I start? Oh, thank you. Um, good afternoon, esteemed council members. Mayor, I forgot about you last time because I didn't see you back there, but

hello and hello to my former chief and my present boss, Council Jerica Williams. Both great in their own rights. Uh, my name is Sergeant Patosanne and I am in charge of the civil division in the council's office. And before I get started, I just want to tell DPW DPS, thank y'all so much for everything. I see them all the time and I appreciate y'all and I am definitely behind y'all for a raise. But in other words, with the civil division and we're going to give a little talk about what we do. My me and my officers, we we my deputies, we serve papers, we serve judgments, we serve protective orders, uh anything that comes down through city court, the city court judges, we serve and and you know, it it just depends. But we do this we do this every day, 5 days a week. I've been with the city of Baton Rouge for 52 years, 40 years with Baton Rouge PD and 12 years with the council's office. And I can tell you right now where my heart's at. My heart is Baton Rouge. I am Baton Rouge. Okay? Just like all these people in here, they're all dedicated and I love my jobs. But I do believe that the constiples, these guys, they do need a raise and they they need a substantial raise. Whatever y'all can give them would, you know, it would be a good start. And basically, my response is that yes, we we are law enforcement and I think it would be really good for us to get a rate, a little bit of a raise whenever the city police gets a raise. that would keep us that would keep us in, you know, in unison with them. And uh like I said, I just, you know, I enjoy my job. I love my job. I don't really see retirement in my future anytime soon, but you know, it's got to come eventually, y'all. So, thank you for letting me speak, and I appreciate all of y'all. Good evening. I'm Sergeant Mark Buller.

I've worked for the Batner City Council's office for 11 years. I spent time in building security, spent time as a baiff, and I've worked in the civil division, but the bulk of my career has been in the jail division where I've been the supervisor since 2023. This has given me a opportunity to get to know the great men and women over the years that have come on because the vast majority of people who start at the conipal's office start through the jail. Jail division is responsible for intake, processing, and transportation of all individuals brought in for city court warrants, all remands by city court judges, and all fugitive arrests made within the city courthouse. We calculate bonds, place detainers on all individuals booked into parish prison who have city court warrants. We conduct call out or TV court every day at Parish Prison working alongside sheriff's deputies. While at the prison, our deputies assigned to call out also collect and verify bonds associated with Baton Rouge city warrants. We're responsible for the transport of all inmates requested by city court from East Baton Rouge Parish Prison along with West Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, Ibraville Ascension, and Livingston Parish jails. We man the control room, which is a security hub for the city court. We monitor security cameras and respond to duress and fire alarms within the courthouse in conjunction with building security. We are also responsible for the city constable for the constable's office dispatch. These are merely some of the duties performed by one division in our office. We as a department work as law enforcement along other law enforcement agencies in our community to complete necessary operations and keep our city safe and functioning as best we can. I

am proud of the work that we do and I am proud of the men and women that I work with. We are perpetually understaffed and criminally underpaid yet we show up every day and get the job done. We deserve better. Please do the right thing and show us that our sacrifices and dedication mean something to you. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Dustin Condi. I'm the treasurer with the Baton Rouge Union of Police. Our president, Brandon O'Neal, wanted to be here, but he is representing our union at police week in Washington this week. I'm going to read a letter that he had drafted. I think you all have a copy. Honorable council members, as president of the Baton Rouge Union of Police, I am writing to express our formal support for the proposed salary adjustments for the city parish employees and the East Baton Rouge city council of deputies, which are scheduled for consideration at the Metro Council meeting today. Our organization is grateful for the recent steps taken to stabilize police department compensation. However, we also recognize that a safer, more efficient Baton Rouge depends on the entire team of municipal workers. Whether it is the civilian staff supporting our operations, the public works employees maintaining our infrastructure, or the deputies in the city council's office who work alongside us in the legal system, every municipal employee is vital to our community success. The proposal for a 3.5% pay raise for general city parish workers and the specific adjustments to the council's office pay scale are a necessary investment. These measures not only address long-standing wage concerns, but also ensure that we can retain the professional talent required to serve our citizens effectively. Public safety is a collaborative effort. When our fellow municipal workers are compensated fairly, it improves morale across all departments and strengthens the foundation of our local government. We believe the administration has identified a fiscally responsible path to fund these raises through healthcare savings and improved revenue. And we urge you to vote in favor of this proposition. Thank you for your

dedication to all who serve East Baton Rouge Parish. Sincerely, Brandon O'Neal, Baton Rouge Union of Police President. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jacqueline Lindel Germany. I am a retired employee of the city of Baton Rouge. to Mayor Edwards, council members, employees, and the citizens of Baton Rouge. When I work for the city of Baton Rouge, I considered myself a public servant because that's the way I was raised. My grandfather in the 60s was the first black foreman for the city of Baton Rouge. So I came from a family that worked that were laborers and we moved on up the echelon which really doesn't matter to anybody else but but that individual. But it boils down to this. We have public safety with our police department and our constable. We have our judges. We have their staff. But the bottom line is we all need money. I haven't gotten raised since I retired in 2006. So I still make the same salary that I did then. So So retirees need something also. I was reading earlier today that Mayor Edwards has proposed a 3.5% raise for all employees. But in working for the city of Bat 3.5 that high that person that's making the highest salary is always going to get the most money. That's just that's just the way things go. But

as the young man spoke earlier, the maintenance worker, which is the lowest salary on the scale, we they all need money. All the employees of the city of Baton Rouge need money. So when you look at your budget and you make your decisions as to what you're going to do because it takes all of you working together to bring about change for the city of Baton Rouge and that's what we want to see change. thinking about everybody and everyone because as I said last time I was here, it's not about me. It's about we the people. So we all stand together

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and we all fall the same way. So when you start looking at giving raises and thinking about what you're going to do, make the best decision not just for your party, what you stand for, but think about the people, the citizens, the workers of the city of Baton Rouge. Thank you very much. Good evening, council, mayor, chief, um, EMS, fire chief. Thank y'all for honoring your word because that's what it's about, your word. You know, if you don't have a word, you don't have nothing. Um, I just look around in this room and I see public service. everything from council, constables, even your jobs, public service. But look, I want to first have everybody in city parish stand up. This is your backbone. This is what make Baton Rouge go. These men and women again, they work for their calling to serve. because it's not about the amount of money that they make because they don't make enough. But I like to just, you know, have everyone just clap their hands and thank these people. And y'all can see by the people in this room, y'all have some people that love

y'all, that care about y'all, that voice they they they they feelings about y'all that represent y'all. And I just say that Baton Rouge, just time. I know I've been in this fight since 2022 as the president of Ask Me Local 3030 fighting and y'all seen me. And I say it's time, Baton Rouge. It's time. It's time for this council to show their love. The fight has always been we don't have the money, but the money's there now. It's time, Baton Rouge. Show your love for your people. Thank y'all.

How you doing? I'm Sergeant Brooks. Excuse me. Excuse me. Sergeant, can we get your name for record? Yes. I'm Harold Greer. Harold, president. Ask me local 3030. Thank y'all.

How you doing? I'm not a big talker, so this going to be short and sweet. I'm over building in courtroom security of Bat City Court. I'm a 20-year veteran of the council's office. In my tenure of my 20 years, I've done multiple things. I've been on the honor guard. I've been on the police bike force and I've been on actually the multi-jurisdictional drug task force in addiction. and the commonality of all those things. I work collectively with other law enforcement, meaning one law enforcement. Even though it's multiple agencies, when we do security out in the streets and everything with these buildings and everything else, we are security, not different agencies, but again, multiple agencies, one law enforcement. All I'm asking is to take care of us. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Sergeant Lee and I'm over the I'm the warrant supervisor for the Bank City Council's office. I'm not going to be short. Frederick Lee. Let me tell you a bit about the council's office. So, good evening council members. I would like to briefly speak on why the council's office deserves increase in compensation. The council's office has long been responsible for executing warrants, locating fugitives, assisting other agencies, and helping protect our community. As a warrant supervisor, I've also assisted with evictions while continuing to manage my warrant operations and office coordination. Every day, we put on a uniform know we face danger, uncertainty, and you different responsibilities. We also respond to emergencies contrary to belief. We do respond to emergencies. I know for a fact we do protect families. We investigate criminal matters. We manage crimes. And between

those ordinary chaos, this is not a 9-to-five job. We work nights, weekends, holidays, and long hours, often sacrificing time with our own families and help to protect other communities. At any given time, I may receive a phone call to execute a warrant issue from one of our elected judges. Our office is a part of the Delta task force. Most you probably know what that is, but what that what that task force entails is we work alongside local, state, and federal agencies in multi parish efforts to com combat crime and improve public safety. At the same time, we're facing manpower shortages while trying to maintain competitive and surround with surrounding law enforcement agencies. The cost of living is rising daily, which makes individuals even more prone to leave one law enforcement agency and move to another. You need to adequately staff to We need you to help us to assist you adequately staff and conduct warrant operations safely and more effectively. Increasing pay would help our office out more and be more competitive. I have proudly served this office for over 11 years and I understand firsthand the dedication and the commitment this job requires. This demands long hours, professionalism, and the willingness to face dangerous situations. I respectfully ask you, please, please consider a raise for our office and the DPW.

Good evening. I'm Captain Brian Ferman from Baton Rou City's office. I have a speech here prepared, but after hearing my guys, I don't know if how how much I'mma stick to it or not. But, uh, so I've been with our I've been in law enforcement for 30 years, and 27 of those years have been with the constable's office. So, I'm on my fourth administration. So, I'm the longest serving employee there. Uh, I'm also a post-certified firearms instructor for our office for the last 20 years. also served as a district 9 vice president for the Louisiana City Constables and City Marshals Association. So, tonight we're asking for you to vote on a raise for all city parish employees, not just our office. Uh, and I guess from my perspective, it comes a little bit from being a father and a grandfather. So, when I was a young deputy, I had a I started off young uh in life and, you know, I had a growing family. So, I was working all the overtime, extra duty I could get to support that growing family. And that took away from family time. I mean, I birthday parties, dance recital, family gatherings, all that. And here we are today. You know, like I said, 27 years later and I got my young deputies back here fighting the same thing. And, you know, tonight, if this passes, maybe that gives them one more event they can go to. You know, that they don't have to work all this extra duty. in overtime just to make ends meet. Um, so and it's not all it's also about retention for the great guys, the men and women that we have. We have to retain them. We have 27 people. And when I started 27 years ago, we had 40. We had six assigned to the warrant division. We got one got one guy working warrants. And I got to pull him to do evictions. Like he said, I got to pull the guy from evictions to help him with warrants. So, it's about the retention. It's about recruiting and

being able to keep the people we have and recruit new people to fill those voids. So, and the only way we're going to be able to do that, we're going to have to pay them a living wage. And and that's what we're asking for tonight. And, you know, I I hope this helps with your decision tonight. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members. I'm not going to take long because they tuck up everything I had to say. My name is Deputy Chief Byron Hatch. I just got one thing to say. A simple yes vote ensures that these people morale will be lifted highly and they'll be able to function well with a simple yes vote. We all know what a no vote will do. Thank you for your time. GOOD AFTERNOON. MY NAME IS Brian Strong. I'm the state president of the Magnolia State Peace Officers Association. Last month, I came before you and uh asked to support the officers that are members of the Baton Rouge Police Department. I'm here today to do the same for members that are with the constables. Um most of the people have already gave you multiple reasons why this should be approved today. And I just ask that you continue to bless all today. bless all the uh the workers today with city parish. They deserve it and we're in full support for that raise today. Thank you.

Good evening, council. I'm Steven Johnson. I am the director for our public works fleet division. I'm here today just to speak on this matter um from a unique perspective. I've been working here 18 years. I've worked in several divisions. I've held several positions from an administration capacity. But one of the things that came to mind when this came up is that I applauded the fact that the city parish has is trying to take on this huge problem. Um it's been a problem for many many years in public works. Every division that I have been a part of and actually be people that I've actually lead every day. I've had several conversations about pay disparity. And one of the things I want you guys to think about before making a decision tonight is to think about the fact that not only are public works employees essential employees, which means we we support critical operations, we actually help maintain and upkeep the city when everybody is not really paying attention. It's a very thank thankless job. And as you know, as a public servant, we're not always paid the top pay. But one of the things we have to address is the elephant in the room. That for many years, we've had people frustrated that actually are our top people. The people that really mean something or most of the time the people that you don't see. Not the people that's standing at the podium during a city council meeting, but people that actually have to run to their second job when they get off. I actually maintain and supervise a fleet. It's supposed to it's an aotment of about 40 positions,

but right now we're overseeing 2,226 critical assets day in and day out. We're counting on to keep these vehicles and equipment up and running for the city so everybody can do their job. Many law enforcement employees have spoken tonight. And one of the major things and critical reasons law enforcement can do their job is because they have a fleet that's running. We have to put investment not only in specific areas that we can see, but those things that we cannot see. So, I'm here on behalf of the ones that can't speak for themsel. I'm not here for myself. I've worked 18 years, but when I started, I interviewed with the thought in mind that as a public servant, I may not make the most money, but at the end of the day, it's about longevity. But right now, that's being threatened by our pay disparity.

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So, please think about it. Hello, council, mayor, all dignitaries. My name is Anna Andrews Welsh. I am an administrator for the city of Baton Rouge for the Department of Public Works and I do the hiring. And since I've been doing this process, we started out with 300 and some uh employees within our public works department of maintenance. Now we're down to 120 and the trash still has to get picked up. The debris has to be moved out of the canals and drainage, but we're still getting smaller and smaller and the pay is not going up any higher. So, we need you all to vote yes on tonight to help the city of Par city parish workers get a pay raise. You know why you don't have more of us in here? Cuz they're on their second job. they would have been here. So, we need each and every one of you all to do your job. Hi, my name is Mike Falcon. I've worked for the city for about 20 years. What I wanted to bring up today was a little bit different than what everybody else brought up. the man, the first man who spoke spoke about fiscal responsibility and and I'll let y'all decide what's fiscally responsible, but I had to tell it I spend most of my time training people, training and training and training. I spend a lot of time talking to people about what they need to do, what they need to learn. We have less than a 25% retention rate in traffic engineering. So, I train a lot of these people to go work in the private sector to go become engineering consultants, to go become technicians. We're training a lot to go and they go and charge us more money to do the same

job. If we had more competitive rates, we could retain those people. That's all I got. Thank you. Hello everybody. My name is Judge Evette Mass Philander and I'm the chief judge in Baton Rouge City Court and I'm back again. Um, I don't have my other four judges with me because they had grandparents, graduations, and all kind of things going on, but we all stand on one accord. And that one accord is that our city parish workers need this raise. When I came to work in Baton City Court 30 years ago, we had over 150 employees. Now we have 57. We were on that same cut that made us u diminish the number of people that we had to get rid of. We had to cut our budget. We had to do this. We had to do that. People are doing one, not just one job, but they're having to do two and three jobs. Just in the last two years, I have lost four clerks, uh four three secretaries that go into court with me. That means you have to train people all over again. start from the beginning. Do everything you um to learn you first of all and then to learn how to handle it in court. I have here with me today our interim clerk judicial administrator um Shakita Harris Jackson. She started working there at 18 like I told y'all last time and she's still there. She's one of the few in the proud so she's there but she understands the court from the top to the bottom. We also have our chief of um of criminal traffic which is our bread and butter. We urge you today, these people work hard. They are there day in and day out. I went to work on a Saturday to sign some paperwork and I called Shakita and

I said, "I don't know how to work the coffee machine." She said, "Oh, they're up in civil. Go ask them." They never once told me that they work on Saturdays. The reason why they do it is because they want to be caught up for us on Monday so that they won't be behind. I plead for all the city parish workers that work in Baton Rouge. They need this pay raise for the morale of the city workers, for the morale of everybody that's involved here. I urge you to please, please, please give them this raise. And thank you to the mayor for finding the money to be able to DO IT. GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS SERGEANT Randall Cunningham and I'm certainly with the Bat City Council's office. Uh to this esteemed uh council, to the mayor, and to all other officials that are here, to my boss, Constable Williams. I'm not going to hold you long. I will not insult your intelligence. You've heard so many come up and say why this is needed. I have been in law enforcement gone on 30 years. I can recall when I had to go out and work details that again like my captain said, you're missing family time. You're missing all of these things because you trying to compensate for the lack of money that you receive on your primary job. But when you sit back and look at the time that has spent away from home, even with the DB DBW and we had the flood just a few years ago, we all were standing hand in hand in boats trying to save our fellow citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish. Not only in the city of Baton Rouge, but we were all the way in Zachary trying to save individuals. You know, the question has always been asked whether or not we're law enforcement. But I tell anybody, it shouldn't be nothing confusing about that whether the council's office or law enforcement. That's like asking a marine. Are you Army or Navy? Are you Air Force or Marine? You're still a part of the military regardless what function you carry. So when you ask that

question, I just ask y'all today because I would not hold you. Consider how difficult it is to maintain two jobs just to support your primary job to make it to work so that at the end of the day you can at least have a retirement but you still will have to work those other two jobs. Please consider this vote. I hope that all of y'all are unanimous today. I hope this will be a stance for the entire Baton Rouge at this time. Thank you for your time. I appreciate y'all.

Good evening council. My name is Hagen Brown and I serve uh in public works under transportation and drainage. Many of you all know my face because I'm usually here during your council meetings. I urge you all to please vote yes to amending the pay plan. I have been with the city parish for now 23 years. This is my fourth administration. My biggest fear that I tell people all the time is that I would retire in an unlivable wage. I've had the opportunity to work for public works. I've worked in former mayor Holden's office, former mayor Broom's office. I was hired under former mayor Simpson's administration and I will tell you that it is difficult to support a family and to support a household working at the city parish. Yes, many city parish employees have to work two jobs just to maintain and they're not living lavishly. I came here as a young mother and wife. My husband passed after 10 years of working here and I was left to support my household. I was left to support my two children, two very young children. I had the opportunity of being rowdy secretary when he came in under um former mayor Broom's office. I hope that I served him well. I know that I served my current boss well. and I am here to ask for your favorable vote for amending the pay plan so that city parish workers can have a livable wage. Thank you. I spoke my name is Marian Bwa. Um, I spoke a few weeks ago about um the lack of funds we have for our youth and the day after we had the mall shooting. Um, so many people came, I'm sure, before me and over the years that have

asked for finances for our youth and yet we are here advocating to give constable's office and BRPD more money and there are no funds in the general fund for our youth over the summer. Okay, I find that problematic. And I'm just here to serve every single one of you guys a notice that if there are no funds in the general fund for our youth, by the time this day is over, I will be serving all of you guys a recall notice. Thank you. I was sitting there Thank y'all for allowing me to talk. I was sitting there and listen to what's your name? My name is Aaron Brent and I work for DBW. I was sitting there listening to everybody pleading for the get a raise to everybody and a lot of people come here and spoke up about they needed two jobs. Well, I'm one of the people that do three and I'm 69 years old. So, it's not as hard on me to be able to leave from one job, go to another one, and then on weekends I'm doing another one. Where do I get some rest? I don't, but I'm doing it because of the passion. I love to work. I do love to work, but I do love to work for a cause. And the only cause that we going to have is to get a pay raise for us to be able to want to come to the job when we know we going to get compensated for the things and and the things that we do for the the public. Everybody in here have to go home, get them some rest, and when they resting, DBW out there still working. That's just

like if you have emergency going on with with the law officers, they come to a emergency, but guess who be there? DBW be already waiting on them and that just like us when the storms come and everything but I'm I'm pleading and begging you to all too if you can please consider getting pay raise so people be wanting to come to those jobs and do a good job for you all. Thank you.

Good evening everyone uh mayor city council. My name is Byron Davis. I'm with DPW. Um, I'm not going to be long. All I want to say is this is long overdue. And it shouldn't have taken this long for my people here to ask for what they've been asking for. I just recently came back from Texas to take care of my mother. And my mother's almost 90 years old. And what the city parish is paying, that is not enough. We have surrounding parishes in this area that are paying more than what we're getting. And for those in that area who are working probably just one job, make it happen because it doesn't make sense. This just like you just gave the police all that money last month and made them the top police department in the state. DPW, the constables, and everyone else should be the top pay in the state of Louisiana just for the simple fact this is the city capital. It's capital of the state of Louisiana. Make it happen. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Everwood and I represent DBW. Also today, um, I just want to make some points known. I'm quite sure that you all will consider what I'm about to say. We all one Baton Rouge. No matter how you look at it, we're DPW. When you walk around or you're riding up and down the highway, when you pass through these neighborhood, you see your grass cut, you see trees falling, when people dial 311 at 2:00 in the morning, the police officer, sure he'll be there waiting,

but he's waiting on DPW to take care of the business. So, what I'm saying in conclusion to all of this is that we are one Baton Rouge. one Baton Rouge and it hurts being paid less so much less and we all have families also. We're asking today for your all consideration to kind of just take a look at the position that we are all in the very ones who are making sure that you're okay and the very ones who are not being recognized. Thank you all so much for your time. ANYONE else wishing to speak? Mayor, I think you and some of your team may want to have a few words. Christ Sadder, chief adviser to the mayor mayor's office. Um, I just want to thank you so much for giving us a few minutes to uh talk about some of the factual information and some of the misunderstandings about this proposal. Um, you know, we prioritized and and we so appreciate what this council has done in terms of helping to shore up public safety one after the other. We were able to bring proposals to you and our city is going to get stronger and safer and and that's going to benefit all of us as a result. Um, this proposal has been um on the table or or the shelf for a long time. The study was actually done in 2023.

Um, best practices say that compensation studies need to be done about every 3 years in changing markets. So, we're actually getting rather close to uh the time when we ought to do it again and we haven't even implemented the recommendations from the first one. Um, we don't see this as just a compensation proposal. We really see this as part of a a total strategic workforce realignment. And I think that some of the misconceptions uh that are out there is that we're broke. We have no money. Uh that's not correct. We we were dealt a hand of cards uh in 2024. We took some steps to try and get some rationalization of that and we did. I have to tell you that the leaders in this room who work for you and for the mayor's office are phenomenal. Um I I said the other day I I I hear virtually no complaints and the people around the table who work for the city power started laughing. They said they're you're not getting them all. We we're getting a lot of them. But the reality is that they have figured out how to do more with less. And even with the civil service system and the way that we had to reduce the workforce, which meant that a lot of our newer um technologically skilled employees did have to leave the workforce or be put in other places, the reality is that we have made adjustments. We've had reorganizations within departments. They are crossraining people. We continue to find deficiencies. um we will be bringing to you at the next meeting some AI proposals uh that we are excited about and we want to give demonstrations to you and to the citizens of Atmouge. So I think that um we see this as an investment in public service. We are a service organization. We don't make things. We're not manufacturing. We provide service and quality is built into a service at the

time of delivery. And if we don't have qualified people, we can't possibly deliver the kinds of service that you expect and we expect as well. I I want to um who who does the slides? Demonstrate you doing the slides. Thank you. Can uh we go to the next slide. So some of you know me from a different life um as part of a consulting organization that has been around for a long time. Uh we've conducted hundreds of pay studies and reorganization plans for governments uh and government agencies at the federal, state, and local level. Um but we just in our files went back and quickly found five pay studies for the city parish, Head Start, public safety, multiple law enforcement uh agencies in over the years in the city parish. um and a very important uh benchmark study on total compensation that was done in about 2013. I want to brag on um this city parish uh from back in 2013 or 2014. In that total compensation study, there were many recommendation, many observations and many recommendations. Um, after we as the consulting firm exited and provided the council and um the mayor's office at the time, uh, the recommendations, they put together a task force and they implemented a number of recommendations that had to do with benefits and retirement. and they rebalanced some of what was out of whack at the time. We have lost a bit of ground, but the process worked so much to the point that we received a call from the legislative officer, the auditor's office not too long ago. They are down in New Orleans. They are struggling with New Orleans's budget. and they asked if we could send them a complete list of recommendations and what that task force achieved because they thought that New Orleans

today could benefit from doing some of the things that we did years ago. We know how to do this. This isn't hard. Um and we're prepared to do that. Uh high-erforming organizations uh do invest in their employees. Interestingly enough, uh and I I decided to leave some of our good employers um some uh time off and not have to come and and uh present how they do this. But I'll tell you about a couple of conversations that were pretty significant. Christy Reeves at Ashner, who was who was very willing to come tonight, said Ashner is the largest employer in the state of Louisiana. I did not realize that. She was so excited when I said, "We're coming up with a proposal for the council." Um because we have people who are really at the poverty level or below. Uh she said, "You know, we've struggled with that for years and we are so excited. Recently, Ashner completed a full pay study and there is no employee in the state of Louisiana that works for Ashner that will earn less than $15 an hour. We're below that. We're at about um $10 and something an hour. This proposal will get us up to $12 and something an hour. We were really hoping to go to 14. Can't quite get there. But that's okay. This is a step in the right direction. And that's how high performing organizations do it. They don't try and do everything all at once. They try and take steps to get the most out of market comparable position employees to the market. Um, high performing organizations spend time looking at their turnover. Uh, I was thrilled to hear some of the speakers from our workforce devastated to look at our turnover numbers and to realize that just in the few months of putting this together and Latoya just told me the number and I can't remember exactly what it is, but we have had hundreds of people leave in a very short period of time. It's it's getting worse and worse

and it feeds on itself because the reality is when you think about it, this is a cycle. It's a cycle of disengagement. And so people are working hard, their co-workers leave, they have to pick it up, they have to pick up the slack, we we have to provide certain services. We're we're in that business. So overtime goes up, people get burned out, and then they begin to look for other opportunities. And that's a slippery slope. We are unfortunately and I didn't realize it until just a few days ago. We really are on that slippery slope. You know, recently there was a a Bat Jerry Foundation study that just was published a couple of days ago and I called and asked about it. Um they we've all heard of the Alice population. George Bell from United Way uh helped coach me on where we are in Baton Rouge. Uh but the reality is that what Hagar was talking about as a single wage earner with children in her household um is it makes it very very hard to make ends meet. Currently if you earn below $35,000 in Baton Rouge you're considered in at the poverty level or below. Uh if you earn between $35,000 and $70,000 according to the BR study you're considered the working poor and that's our Alice population. Someone suggested that we maybe look at should unclassified employees be part of this race. The most I've had in the past few days was spending two hours um the other night pulling the list of directors and assistant directors and seeing with our current pay plan how many of them were below $70,000 in starting pay. So, if we do nothing and Angie Seavoy, our finance director, leaves or someone else leaves, 80%

of the unclassified people on that list are under $70,000 at step one of the current scale. We don't have people earning. You're not going to get wealthy working for the city. It's not there. It's not there. This is a minimal average 3.5% pay raise, but I got to tell you, when you're at the low end of the scale and you're getting a little bit more than that, every little bit helps. So, what the consultants have done in their proposal is compared us market comparisons to other communities. Um, very similar jobs, exactly markettomarket comparison. And what you see are adjustments based on how far off. And I can tell you, we have the hard to fill jobs. Mechanics, uh, equipment operators, what we're a training agency for the state. We're we're training people. We're we're spending good money on that. And then next thing you know, they get picked off. We've come to you with uh requests for emergency situations like that. There's a lot of hidden cost of turnover. I talked about overtime costs, lost productivity, service delays. Um I'm I'm watching um in meetings people stepping out to answer calls some because somebody's been trying to get in touch with someone. Uh and and it's going to become harder and harder uh to continue to provide the level of service that we're used to giving. Um you know uh I was on a panel years ago with the guy who started the Container Store. We don't really have the container store here much, but it's very prevalent in other um communities and it's considered a best practice. They they they are very um workforce friendly and serviceoriented and um the gentleman who was on the panel said something that I really didn't understand it at the time.

He said, "In our organization, one great is worth three good." I've had department heads tell me, you know, the workforce reduction was hard, but the reality is we kept a lot of our good people. We're we're leaner. We're meaner. And now we can bring them up, cross trainin them. We we can we can live with this. I think that where we are now allows us to continue to add great people, people with experience, people with talent, people with skills that we desperately need. Now, let me take you to where we are right now. So, um, just a few years ago, we had 4,444 employees. We serviced a much larger area. I've had business people say, "What have you done uh with the workforce and things since city of St. George?" Well, we have a we have good answers to that. That's not a hard question to answer. You all have helped us make good decisions about that. It's lumpy. It's not perfect. It's it's it it is a government agency with civil service system, but they but we're doing good with your help. We are doing very very well and we have a good story to tell. We also have millions of dollars in federal funds which we don't have today. Go to the next slide. We have 3,900 employees. So, we went from 4,444 to 3900. Our departments have adapted. I know our employees have adapted. We have a new normal. Now, not everybody is going to be able to sustain this if we continue to lose people. I had someone come and work on my computer today from information services. Uh two wonderfully talented women. One has been here 10 years and one has been here 12 years.

They have lost 10 people in is since we did workforce reductions. Workforce reductions scare people. And the people you lose first are your best people. The most marketable people have opportunities. So again, the slippery slope. We now have 3,900 employees. We have a new normal, but we can't um continue to provide first class service, which is what this city is all about. We're the capital city. We're in a region that is competitive, and we need to be up to the challenge. uh we can't pay people at a secondass level and continue to have that next slide. Overall, so the 544 fewer positions that we had in uh 2024 um and now we're in 2026. The graph kind of indicates what that looks like. We found out that we have approximately 100 positions that are vacant and funded within the general fund. These are positions, some of which have been vacant since 2024. So I will tell you as a consultant, if you go into an organization, they have a position that haven't been filled in two years, we're going to say, "Hey, do you really need that position?" Because you're making do without it. Now, sadly, I will tell you what we hear anecdotally is that if we were trying to get a full-fledged accountant in uh the finance department, what we're having to do because the the pay is so low, we're having to drop down and we're h having to get some sort of bookkeeping skills sets that maybe we can make this work. We'll at least have a warm body, somebody to answer the phone, somebody to help. But again, you can't continue to do what we're what we have been doing uh if we're doing that throughout the government. Um new methods of delivering services, as I mentioned, are absolutely on the top of

the list, but you have to have good people to do this. So, how are we addressing this? We're going to freeze approximately 100 positions. Um I I think it's very important for everyone to know that we already have a mechanism in place. our human resources director and uh our finance director have have worked on a process and a form um when we have uh a needed position a department director simply goes through the exercise of demonstrating need. So this is not a hard freeze where no one will will be able to uh replace positions. Um, we are proposing to use those savings to reinvest with our workforce to retain our talented employees and our institutional knowledge. Um, how does this work and how does this impact the budget? By restructuring the workforce, we're freeing up $4.6 million annually and the annual cost of this raise is $4.4 million out of the general fund. We have a $1 billion budget overall and this is 210 of 1% of the total annual budget. It's extremely cost-effective. It's not enough. I will just say um when we met in small groups, we shared with you that according to the um MAD consultants, uh we are at 45% of market value for the positions. were paying at 45% of market value back when it was done. If we had implemented the raise at that point, we would have gone to 65% of market value. We're probably a little bit below that, but that's okay. This is a start and we see this as a start. Um, high performing organizations, this where we'd love to get at some point. And if we would start doing this continually, it would be easier and

easier and we'd be able to retain and recruit good people, high-erforming organizations try to pay at about the 75% of market value. So if you approve this tonight, we go up to 65%. That's great. When we are able to do a little bit more, we'll go up to 75%. And maybe as one of our speakers so wisely said, we'll get some of our people back. We actually have names of people we would like to go after and we know where they are. Um so if we are able to do that and retain some of our higher skill employees uh who have the specialized skills and experience, we will begin to attract good people, want to work work with good people. Uh, the average raise is $2,900 a year or $241 a month. I had someone um tell me the other day, "That sounds terrible." Well, you know what? That's $241 more a month than somebody's getting right now. We see this as a structured market correction. This is a pretty significant thing. Okay, people are who have been capped out will be able to continue to stay here and know that they have an opportunity to continue to get closer to the market and we have a lot of good dedicated people who have been here a long long time and you heard from them uh some of them uh just a moment ago but we see this as part of a multi-year targeted solution. Uh, it's an important step to rebalance total compensation and I know that the MAG consultant talked about that. Several of you suggested that I go back and watch it. I couldn't find it because I'm not as technologically uh sophisticated as some of the other people in the mayor's office, but a kind person found it for me and sent me the link and it was very illustrative as you all told me it would

be. We're we're messed up. We're 75% benefits and 25% salaries and wages. And guess what? Young people don't like that. They're going to live forever. They don't care about retirement. They don't care about, oh, all this other stuff. And plus, I'm not sick. You know why? Because I don't even go to the doctor if I'm a young person anymore. So, um, we got to we got to rebalance that. We have to rebalance that. Um, we are able to do that at the same time as raising pay. There's no reason why they can't be done at the same time. And in fact, we were invited to a meeting the other day uh with some of um our union members and leadership uh suggesting that we go back to what was done in the time period that I talked about before. And so I'm going to tell you that we are committed from the mayor's office to start a task force that will look at we've already had discussions about health care possibilities that's short-term and we could realize those savings next year just as you did last year which really helped shore us up when we needed it terribly. Now we're going to t tackle retirement. Um we have retirement people here. We have people who are interested in working with us to do this. We will need council member participation. and we will need nominations from you, but we want to roll up our sleeves and really see what we can do. I'll tell you one of the most significant things that was done in the task force that I mentioned before. They capped sick leave that you could carry into retirement. That doesn't sound like a big deal. Now, everybody who was already in our workforce, you can't take away their benefits, but every new person, imagine how many new people have come in since 2013. So, it's it's like the tree you plant today, but grows bigger and bigger and for generations in the future, they get

to enjoy it. That's how I see what we're about. You know, the mayor is committed to this. he's going to um uh come up here and and uh give you some of his observations and thoughts, but I think that we've got to wrap our mind around. We have no choice, but we've got to tackle all these problems simultaneously. So, what's before you tonight is not the final answer. It is an immediate correction. It's a retention strategy. Uh and it's a step toward restoring basic competitiveness for good employees. Uh but it's not about choosing fiscal responsibility and supporting employees. Uh you all are very responsible elected officials and responsible leadership uh knows that they they have to do both. So thank you for your consideration. You all have been wonderful. I I've can't tell you how much I enjoy your having open minds and flexible thinking and I hope that you will consider voting yes tonight. Thank you, council. So, first let me address the outfit. It's seriously not theater. It's not. This is who I am. These are my brothers and my sisters. I'd put on a conible uniform constable, but they told me I'd be be impersonating a law officer. But at my core, this is who I am. And let me explain. And I'm proud to wear this uniform. Okay? This is the boots on the ground of East Baton Rouge Parish. I know the council has heard me say this before, but I'm 63 years old, and I'd like to be able to tell a story of how

times were tough when I was younger. 17 months ago, I was the head football coach at a Struma High School, making $62,000 a year, which was about $30 more,000 a year than some of these people make. Beanie and I's lights went out. I got two autistic kids at home. We didn't have the money to pay the bill. This was three years ago. Now, I only had to go a day and a half in July without those lights, but I felt it. And that's why I'm up here advocating for these folks. You could hear about it. You could read about it. You could see it in movies. You could see it in all type of aspects. But until you feel it, you don't know it. I have felt it. And that's why I am so passionate to be able to push this over the finish line tonight. There's just so many people that don't know how the other half lives. Putting yourself in another shoes to see how it is. I went, these folks told you DP DPW people in particular can vouch for me. I went to every one of their their places, every division and spoke with them. And the question I had for most of them is, how many of you are working more than one job? And 70% of them raise their hands. I know that, too. I once worked two or three jobs. I've been in homes recently where I go in and babies are crying. There's not enough food on the table. Mamas and daddies having to decide to put gas in the car or feed the children. It's amazing how far a box of cereal can go when as some people don't have nothing else but a damn box of cereal. It's far how it could go. And until

somebody lives that and feels it, they don't know it. Over 300 of our employees are working below the poverty line. And I want to tell you, I want to thank them because soon as I got in here, I challenged them. I challenged them. I said, "Look, help is coming." And they told me, "We've been hearing that a long time." I said, "Help is coming. Pick it up. You're averaging 60 potholes a month. Can you average 160? You know what they did? They did it. They stepped up. They kicking butt in East Baton Rouge Parish. When people say law constipable is not law enforcement or they're not public safety, go ask the judges and the constituents and the lawyers over there in one of the most dangerous places you could be in while these men and women are standing there protecting people. Uh before I go on, I I was asked because there's a couple of folks truthfully that asked to be heard on a video I want to play, but they're working their second job tonight and they can't be here. Chason, can we tee that video up one moment? I'm Katrice Bellazair. I've been an employee at City Parish for 4 years this month with

the council's office. Six going on seven years. 8 years. I've been working with City Parish for 12 years.

I have to be to work a little early, so I'm not able to get her to school, but she gets on the bus once I'm at work. Um, once at work, I have a threeman crew. We do potholes Pariswide, you know. Um, gets hard, get rough, gets rough sometimes, but we do what we have to do. We make it happen. This mean that that for the for the cost of living right now everybody need a raise. Ain't no way in the world possible I for have three jobs 69 years old. I'm Latoya. Um work in mail services B2 pick up mail. We deliver mail and we also had to process uh ballots. Ballots are very important to elections and without us the mail out ballots which is 90,000 ballots would not go out. We're responsible for all the city parish departments. We go around to maybe 60 departments and we pick up everybody's mail and bring it back to the to the office and assort it.

That DPW deserves a pay raise because we are essential workers. The admin staff is on call just like the workers are when they have to go out to do a job. Pay raise means a lot. I think that we deserve a pay raise. We're essential workers. Well, we're labeled as essential workers. We work all types of incremental weather, storms, hurricanes, snow. You know, when most people at home with their family, their kids, their loved ones through this weather, we're at work making sure that things are running and going as they should. So, that's kind of hard and you know, but it has to be done and we take we take the initiative and we make sure it's done. So, I think that we deserve that. pay raise will give me the extra that I need to supply my kids for my kids, my family, and just do a whole lot of things that needs to be done with my family.

And I'm going to close out, but here's here's what comforts me when I look at you 11. We got one on a cruise in Aapoco somewhere. This I I'd like you all to look at me. I'd like to be able to see all of you. If you would look up, please. This is not a tactical technical vote. This is a vote of the heart. When we're dealing with city parish finances and all that, I know it's a really big deal, but this is a vote of the heart tonight. It rarely happens. But tonight, tonight, it's a vote of your heart to do the right thing for some people that are least against us. And I tell you, we got another opportunity with what's going on at the state capital and what's going on federally. We have a moment tonight to heal and to do something bipartisan and do something together that is special for Baton Rouge. I don't want to live by the adage when the rich man is busy dancing and the poor man pays the band.

I don't think we're back working. We're we're we were thinking it might the the machines might be up and start working, but Ashley's restarting over here. But if somebody wants to click to speak, let's just see if I guess still not working. Okay. Well, raise your hands if you want to speak. Who wants to go? Council McKenna. All right. Council members. Uh, first off, the DPW workers. Um, thank y'all for coming out. Um, you all the heartbeat of our city parish. Um, I know the theme of our last council meeting was around 911. Um, giving the most highest police pay raises in the state. And I'm glad the city parish did it, right? But, um, just like 911 is called, 311 is called just as much in this community. Um, council members, I put on each of your desks, um, our good friends at the foundation did this, um, study about poverty in East Baton Rouge Parish. East Baton Rouge Parish is almost twice as the national average for poverty in East in our community and city. And so, as a city parish today, we have an opportunity to be a solution and not a part of the problem. If we have about 300 and 400 of our employees that fall at the poverty line and fall in this stats and data and we don't approve this today, we are culprits to the problem. Then mayor, if we get this passed today, Lord willing, right, I see all the fancy billboards, BRPD, come join today. I think tomorrow we need to have billboards for city parish workers. If we want to attract attract the best and brightest in this community, we need to have the same standards across the board. Um I know a couple weeks ago my colleagues and I we did a press conference right in this very council chambers. Um it was a political grand stand. Um it was a political stunt and nothing like that to force the mayor. Um

we honestly thought these city par city Paris workers needed a voice in this room. Right? We all watched the news. We all watched the council meeting. Um we saw the red carpet rolled out for BRPD. But me and my colleagues feel like the red carpet need to be rolled out for our city Paris workers as well. We got an email today, council members, for a lady said she has to choose tonight um between buying a meal or putting gas in her car. Gas on average is $4.15. She says she's making $8.75.

So that mean half of her paycheck is going to gas. So if we want to be competitive as a parish, we need to make sure we're setting that standard as well. Um, Christelle, Angie, come up right quick. So, I know one of the things questions that came up is about we have to freeze some roles. Now, if we um approve this tonight, are we able in certain circumstances to um alleviate some of those roles as needed for some of our departments? So, we have to freeze all of our roles to get this across the board. Right. If there's a situation the department needs to hire somebody, are we able to unfreeze a role based on the situation?

Oh, absolutely. the the hundred positions that uh would be funding this have not been used and so that implies that these are less necessary positions but certainly if something changes uh there are mechanisms to do that and and we're prepared to do that. All right.

All right. No, thank you. Thank y'all. And so the last last point I want to make I know some of my colleagues going to talk about a retirement pension system. Now, I only been here for a year and a couple months. And so, I know this MAG study that's been done was done prior to me taking office, but I know this MAG study has been sitting on the ship for a very long time. And so, I know we have to address the retirement issues, the pension issues, but I don't believe in pin toe holding all of these DPW workers over something that should have been done years ago. And so, mayor, to my colleagues here today, um we understand this political climate is very tense right now. But one powerful thing, Mayor Edwards came up here and said, we have an opportunity here and show at this council level that we care about the little people. And so I'm asking you all here today to approve this motion. It's not about Democrat or Republican. It's about each and every person who came up to that podium who bust their behinds for us. And not just our DPW workers. Think about each and every legislative assistant that works for us on a daily basis. Cuz I know my two, they take care of me. And I know they take care each and one of y'all respect the employees, but it's not about our AIDS. It's not about DPW, but it's about these little people who came and saw this council meeting last time and saw the red carpet rolled out for BRPD, which they look, they honestly earned those raises, right? But today, they need to know and understand that we care about them. And if we walk away today and kill this item, what are we telling them? And so when all those 311 requests start stacking up

and them constituents start saying it's time for us to get out these seats, they are the backbones for our jobs. So I I encourage you all today and in favor of support of this. Um and mayor pro Tim, I move to approve this item. Got it. Second. Got a motion by Councilman Kenny, second by Councilwoman Coleman. Councilwoman Coleman.

Good evening everyone. On May 6, we took care of Baton Rouge's finest. We saw the need. We acknowledged the need. We met that need. Our vote made the statement that public safety matters, recruitment matters, retention matters. That was the statement that was made. It mattered on May 6 and it matters today. We're not asking, they are not asking for a hand out. They're asking for a hand up.

Thank you. To get them as close to a livable wage as we can get them for such a time as this. It's time to take care of our, get this, taxpaying citizens

who keep the rest of the city government working. People leave Baton Rouge and I want to talk about why the young people leaving, why the folk leaving. People are leaving Baton Rouge because they don't feel valued. Not just the college students. Their talents and gifts are not respected. Their talents and gifts are not valued. These are our taxpaying constituents. All of these folk are a constituent of one of ours up here. So many of them, all the majority of them live in one of our districts. I know 117 of them in district 10. Yeah. 117 of them in 10. best district there is. So, do you know who we're talking about giving the raise to? Yeah. Three ladies. Just three. They got three ladies in that big old mail room over there. Do you know them? There are only three, I think, over there in finance. Do you know them? Do you know that our legislative assistants, they taxpayer residents as well? Our assistants are involved in this pay raise. And to say no is a no for the people that hustle their butts off to make things happen for all you

council people that set up here. I know mine does. And if y'all don't think so, y'all need to look at them right now and tell them that they ain't doing anything or they don't deserve they don't deserve this little money. So they here tonight and even though you ran them raggedy today, I know I did. They are here tonight. So just tell your aids you don't deserve this. Y'all tell them you don't deserve this. So if you can't do that, it ain't but one way to vote. Ain't but one way. Pay them people. So in the words of and I love music my dad dear to me in the words of Eric B and Rock came it's time to get paid in FULL C Jr. Thank you. So much has been said here this evening. um the city parish employees who came out and spoke who did an amazing job. I don't think any of us really need to say anything else cuz y'all represented ys as well. So I just want to take my hats off to you guys for participating in your own rescue. Councilman Kenny mentioned the press conference that we held in this chamber and we talked and we discussed and we saw this conversation happening and we felt it was a vacuum there. We thought it was a void. You know, rightfully so. The mayor campaign on law enforcement and BRPD, we get it. But we didn't see or hear a voice for the rest of the city

parish employees. One of you guys came up and talked about how yes, BRPD are first responders, but oftent times DPW and other folks are out there aiding and assisting on those calls. And several of you just kind of made the point how the whole system depends on each department, each person. If one department pulls out, then the whole system has the potential to go under. So it relies on everybody. No little little eyes, no big U's, no big U's, no little eyes. So we thank each of you for your service, for your commitment to this city and your commitment to this parish. We appreciate you and I hope this council, my colleagues and I can show you that not with words but with actions today. A lot has been made about the freezing of positions and limited uh employees paying into the retirement system. The point has been made about BRPD where it's going to improve recruitment. They're going to be more people that they can attract and bring into the system to pay into the retirement system. where the same effect is going to happen in all these other department is if you give them higher raises, higher pay raises and higher salaries, they'll be able to attract more employees to pay into the system as well. Another point, not only does more employees pay into the system when you bring more employees to it, but the retirement that's contributing to the system is based on a percentage of your pay. When the pay is increased, a higher percentage of that pay goes into the retirement system. So, not only does more employees contribute more, but when higher salaries are increased, that's more going into the system. So, I just kind of want to debunk some of these talking points and and myths that's been out there trying to uh

bring doubt about why we should do this. The dollars are there. The money is there. Finance, HR, administration, council members have worked tirely to to identify these funds. The dollars are there. I hope that we can find it within ourself, within this body to support these people who support us all the time. And I'm going to be the third person to mention these legislative assistants and council staffs because none of us can do this council work without this council staff. They are the VIPs. They are the MVPs. They are the nuts and bolts of the council offices. They returning calls, emails. They visiting sites. Oftent times they they they attending meetings on our behalf. It's a whole lot of things that has to be done within a council office to service these 30 40,000 constituents and more because we may have 40,000 constituents in our district but oftent times we receiving calls from all over the parish in our district and and not in our district and we could not do this work without our council staff, our legislative assistance and I think it would be heartbreaking for them to know that the person or persons that you work for to help contribute to the success of the council office would not be in support of giving you a pay raise. Thank you,

Councilwoman Harris. Thank you. Um, Mayor Pro Tim Brandon No. Uh let me first start off by saying yes, we do have the best staff when we speak of our legislative assistants and any other supporting staffs in our office. They give it their all. Again, they uh pick up our slack when we um are at a meeting or have another engagement going on. For my staff is 247 uh seven days a week. There's never no always answering the phone. I'm always texting late at night, but they're always always available and work very hard and dedicated to this job. So, thank you to my staff and to every legislative assistant who gives it their all. No matter who you belong to, you do the job and you do it well. I want to do a recap. I was writing as folks were talking and I want to share. I want to recap some things that was said that really stood out to me. Sydney Pennington with the engineering traffic engineering is retiring. She's leaving the city of Baton Rouge, but she made it her business to be here tonight. Not for herself, but for her employees. That stuck out to me. That impacted me because Sydney could be on a cruise ship somewhere sailing off into the sun. But she came here tonight for her employees to make certain. She said her employees slept under their desk for two weeks. They used their boats to recruit to rescue folks during the flood. Mr. Steven Johnson been here 18 years

and he said this is I'm not I'm not here for myself. He's here for his employees. Mr. Mr. Eugene Smith who works for DPW a complaint he's a complaintant investigation investigator sorry um he's been with the city a very long time his passion you can feel his passion as he spoke about his job and what he does uh deputy Sharon Douglas spoke about one of the civilians who used to work for them a single mother making $10.54 an hour raising a child putting gas in her car and paying child care. And I know plenty plenty women who's doing just what she's doing to make a honest living for her and her children. Um, who else? Mr. Everett. Mr. Everett works for DPW. He said he cuts grass, even cut fallen trees, but he makes certain that we are okay. These are his words, not my words. He said, "We make certain that you are okay, but we're not being recognized for it." That's Mr. Ever's words. Mr. Everett, where are you? Those were very powerful words, sir. Hagar Brown. Where's Hagar? Hagar has been around here for 23 years. She's worked for four different administrations. Hagar lost her husband. They had been married 10 years and she was raising her children on her salary.

Angie and her staff. I've spoken to Angie many times when she says to me that she has staff who are working two and three jobs. That is pulling on the heart. And mayor says it perfectly. This is not about Democrat, Republican. It's about doing the right thing. That's what it's about. You heard for yourself tonight how our workers, our city parish employees are getting paid $10.54 an hour. Really? 1050 an hour? $14.75 an hour. Really? So I ask that every city parish employee stands up, please. Every single parish employee, please stand up. Legislative assistants, everybody who works for City Parish, stand up. You

scared to stand up. And I No, I didn't ask you to clap. I was, but I ain't getting no raise. You ain't getting no raise. You ain't getting no raise. I want to say to my colleagues in closing, we have every single employee with City Parish who's in this room tonight standing up and if you shoot this vote down tonight, you are saying to them, I do not see you. Thank you.

All right. First of all, I want to apologize to everybody. I have been sniffling and coughing up here all night. I'm trying to get over it, but I'm going to do my best. Um, so thank y'all all for coming out tonight. I think this has been uh a great showing and uh everybody did such a good job. Um, I feel like there's uh there's so many people I can thank for how you make us look. Certainly to our staff. I tell people all the time, you know, it's just me and Lisa a lot of times, and Lisa's not going to cut your grass or fill your pothole or overlay your road or or clean your ditch, but uh but we know who can and uh and so Lisa does a great job for me. I know uh Fred and Reginal and and Cindy, everybody anytime we have something going on, we have a request. Um y'all are able to keep us updated. Regginal, so many times we've asked for, hey, where is this? Where's this? Where does this issue stand? You give me a thorough report on exactly, hey, went in this day, we did this, we went and checked it out, it's going to be done, it's on the list for this day, so I can give a thorough report to my constituents on here's where it is. And it's not just lip service, but you give me dates and you give me data that really helps me let them know that, hey, you're on the list. It's not just lip service. And I appreciate that. That's that's huge. It really is. You do a great job. Uh and everybody's staff really does. Um so I I I appreciate everything we have going on here. I think this uh the one thing I would say about this approach, um I do feel like it's moved a little fast. Uh I shared that with many of my colleagues. I shared that with the mayor's team. Um, and part of that's on me. Um, and I would say maybe some of my colleagues as well. Um, what I think a lot of y'all may not

realize is a lot of us have other jobs, too. And so, uh, we signed up for this and we realize it and, um, but we have families and jobs, too. And so sometimes researching some of the things that we're going to vote on coming up. Um we're not doing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Um and it is on the extra time. And believe it or not, this part-time job takes up far more time than any of you realize. I promise. Um but we enjoy it and that's why we sign up for it. Um I I would say um you know to the mayor's team uh thank y'all for certainly being open to us and will every time I've asked to meet and go over things y'all are available. Uh I just wish honestly I was available a little more sometimes on these because we don't set out this timeline y'all do and that is difficult. What I would ask is it would help a lot if y'all could bring us in before the 11th hour on some of these items. That's something that I know we've talked about a lot and I think if we believe it or not uh the people up here have a lot of knowledge and can help a lot on these items early on. And it doesn't always have to be at the 11th hour when you think you've got it all figured out and you and then you're ready because a lot of times as you know once you get us in the room there's good ideas and there's some things and you realize a you got to count to seven which sometimes can be difficult we know but beyond that uh there's some good ideas and some strategies and some things that may change based on conversations y'all have with us. So because of that, I would say bring us in a little bit earlier and maybe that is a little bit easier and we don't have these shortened timelines where everybody feels a lot of pressure. Um, one thing I know I talked to a couple of my colleagues today uh that and I'm not going to name them, but they didn't realize that this wasn't the three three and a half% across the board that was talked about so many times. We're

actually implementing the MAG study from trying to go from the 45th percentile to the 65th percentile, which is actually a better approach. It's fairer, I think, because it's taking some of those people who are that we talked about with the very low pay grades and put giving them a higher boost and maybe some of the people at the on the higher end not getting quite as much because they're already closer to what market says it's supposed to be. that's implementing that study is a fairer approach in my mind than actually across the board. But I had two colleagues who didn't even realize that's what the proposal is, but that was born out of conversations had with the sta with the mayor's staff before they put the meat behind the legislation that was already on the agenda. So again, moving some of these things a little bit quickly, things can get lost. And I just want to I want to caution you all to bring uh bring us in a little bit earlier and let's make sure that uh everybody can get questions answered satisfactoryy as we move forward. Um I I think this is uh I think it's a first step towards many things that we're going to need to fix. I would like to ask um and I ain't going to take my extra time. Um Angie, if you could come up. I had just want to clarify some things that I think it's already been said but I want to make sure everybody understands. Um okay so when we had the um we have to have a balanced budget correct

yes sir and we balanced the budget this year accurate yes sir okay so when you're moving from positions explain exactly how the funding for this is happening in that manner

so currently we have some vacant funded positions within the city parish and the ones that everyone is uh more concerned about is the general fund because that is the fund that we had to uh reduce recently. So we have currently over a 100 vacant positions funded within the general fund and so we are unable to fill those positions. So that funding in the general fund will be reallocated to support the increase in compensation within the general fund. The special funds and the dedicated funds have additional resources. They do have additional vacancies as well. And like uh Christelle said, as the hiring requests come in, we will review them um on their merit of service impact and financial impact.

Okay. So, we're moving dollars that have already been budgeted for. We're just reallocating them across these positions to implement the pay study that was done three years ago. Correct.

Okay. That's what that's all I need. I just wanted to make sure people understand because the narrative of hey everybody said we were broke and things are terrible and we we you know we need to thrive to pass to be able to do anything. How are y'all coming up with these dollars now? Well, these are budgeted dollars for positions that just are not filled. So, I want people to understand what we're talking about. This isn't a that this isn't a situation where that wasn't true and now this this is just moving dollars that are already budgeted for not being used across. Councilman Dun Jr. touched on this um when it talks about the retirement system, which we have had a lot of discussion about. But by moving these dollars that are already budgeted for into these positions uh for payraises, it actually increases the dollars that are going into that retirement system because they're actually going through the system now. It increases the liability as well. That it's both sides, no question. But um when you look at incre it increases money going into their retirement system plus when we talk about the reasoning some of the broader reasoning behind this which is retaining employees and being able to recruit new employees by broadening that base. If we can recruit positions that are going to remain open and where they can be filled and where we do need people, then we have a better ability to do that and um start broadening that base and increasing uh the amount of funding going into the system as well. Um, so the the only thing I'll offer, um, and I'll say this to all of my colleagues because I know even today I was still asking questions and I still do have some questions and some were answered um, and there were still some some things that I I feel like even the answers to questions received uh, I could ask more questions arose. Um, so what I

would like to offer is a substitute emotion for a friendly deferral for 2 weeks. Um, if nobody else feels like this is what I'm offering to all of you all because I know as I said a couple of colleagues didn't even know exactly that the proposal had changed today. So I'm going to offer that up as a motion uh for a twoe deferral. If anybody else feels like they need it, please second it. If not, you're not going to hurt my feelings if it dies. But I just want to offer that uh I feel as pro Tim I want to give the opportunity to all of you if anybody else feels like they do need more time and have questions that need answering I want to offer that. Please second that. If not I promise it's not a problem if it dies. So I'll offer that as a motion. Substitute motion for deferral for two weeks. Motion. Okay. Councilman Hudson seconds motion for deferral. Council Maraka,

thank you so much. Um, I'm looking at numbers and trying to do an evaluation of what this pay study and all the numbers look like with regard to raises. And a lot of people said $10 an hour tonight. And computing your $10 an hour, making that $20,000 a year, $20,800 a year. This 4% raise is going to give that person $832 extra a year. That's it. That's it. $69.33 a month. $3467 a paycheck. Y'all are all worth more than that. 4% is embarrassing, but that's what we have here for you today. And I apologize for that. But one thing that I did and one thing I wanted to know and I want to share with y'all some of the homework that I've done over the past two weeks to make sure that you fully understand what we're getting ourselves into is I have some important questions and I want to make sure that these questions are answered to you. And I also want to make sure that every elected official that sits here before you today is making a commitment to you that that $832 isn't going to be eaten up in some other expense. That we're not handing you a 4% raise just to yank it from you from something else. So today, today as we sit here, not in November, we will not see health insurance changes where your health insurance premiums will go up or you'll have a narrow network where you can't go outside of a certain hospital to get your health care provided to you. The other thing that I don't want seeing is that these frozen positions that stay frozen where most of our men and women are working two and three jobs trying to go and and work and do these jobs for three different people having work buried on top of them. I

want to I want to be assured that those jobs are going to open back up and they're going to be filled and we're going to be able to move forward without massive layoffs in 2027 than again in 2028. The other thing that is incredibly important to me was doing the math on the numbers with regard to our retirement plan. And some of my colleagues tried to beat me to it, but I want you to understand that what I care about are the people that have been here that have been working in the hot sun, filling potholes, going out serving warrants. I want to make sure that their their pension is protected. the people that have put 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and I'm gonna give you some numbers to support that. That not this year, but next year, five years from now, 10 years from now, all of you that put that time in to earn those pensions, all of you that have dedicated your life to City Parish for a lesser wage are going to continue to have those pension dollars. that we're not going to be like Detroit whenever the city went bankrupt and the retirees were the ones that bear the brunt and they no longer had pensions. So, please give me the opportunity to share those numbers with you so that we sit here today as these officials that are carrying these raises for you on your backs and on your hard work that we are also making a commitment to you to continue to do the work to not play a cup game with costs to not shift higher insurance burdens on you in the fall or the following year and to make sure that the money that goes in your pocket stays there. So, let's talk about numbers currently. And I have to say thank you so much to the SER staff. I started emailing them on Friday. They emailed me back on Friday. They called me on Monday. They gave me pages and pages of information that they started computing because they hadn't looked at these numbers yet or they hadn't been asked these questions yet, which is alarming because the vote was

today. But while we're sitting here, I'm going to go over with these with you so you understand what work we've done to make sure that you're carrying these numbers with you and that you're carrying your wage and you keep those small that small 4% in your paycheck. So regular employees with 20 more 20 or more years 133 persons. fire employees with 20 or more years, 88 people. As of January 1st, 2025, SER members with service between 15 and 20 years. Those are people that have dedicated and paid into our pension plan for 15 to 20 years. 425 employees. Those employees will potentially be retiring in five years. So, when we're talking about recruitment and retention and we're talking about all the people that we want to have that institutional knowledge stay here and we're talking about what that looks like for the city parish moving forward and growing, that's 425 people that can leave. A lot of people are sitting in this room here with us today that are right on that hairy edge of being able to retire. So then we look at actuarial numbers and I think that this is really important just so we understand that we need to continue growth continue conversations and continue movement forward. How has the unfunded liability that's the li yes the li the liability with regard to your pension plans that you've paid into that you're supporting that you're working hard for. How has that unfunded liability changed over the last 5, 10, 15, and 20 years? In January of 2005, your UA was $173 million. Okay. In January of 2015, our unfunded liability was $452 million.

In January of 2020, your unfunded liability was $637 million. In January of 2025, your unfunded liability was $752 million. And that number is continuing to grow unless we make some considerable changes moving forward. So the conversations that you have today, the support that you've shown doesn't stop here. It doesn't end here. And sure, we didn't have that conversation when we're talking about police officers. They're under the emperor's um retirement plan. We are seeers, you guys. Everyone in this room seepers. So, it is a different conversation to be had. But I am begging you when you leave this room today and you get your 4% raise or your pay scale is changed or adjusted, don't let the conversation stop there because the hard work that you've put into this program, these answers are your answers. You've earned them. You need them. and you need to continue moving forward to make sure that you secure them not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now, but the 30, the 40, and the 50 years. And if you look at how these numbers are acrewing, we need some phenomenal change moving forward. Thank you all so much.

Councilman Hudson,

I want to first just say how impressed I am with all of our city parish employees. Um, you know, the amount of professionalism that you have, I really love seeing a lot of our directors come up and speak on behalf of their departments. Uh, it shows a lot that you care about your employees, you care about your people, you care about their families, right? Um, and so kudos to you guys for coming out and and and putting on such a great display to our community uh with how you conducted yourselves tonight. Um, you know, I will say I don't think I've talked to a single council member uh that is opposed to a city parish pay raise. So, I want to first clarify that, right? Uh, a lot of folks would like to frame this debate as, you know, you're either pro payrais or anti-pay raise. Look, we all recognize as a council, as a body, that we don't pay our our people enough. Uh, that we need to be more competitive, that we need to do a better job for your families. Uh, that we need to we need to give you a a robust pay package as a whole. uh not just in compensation but in benefits as well. Um so that's just to clarify that right every everybody is for a pay raise. Uh but what matters right now is the process uh to make sure it's a sound process and then the dollars and cents that follow it. Right? We have to put together a total plan, a total package. Uh, and we need to do it in a way that is transparent and that gives you as the employee the total picture along with the citizens that ultimately the taxpayer that ends up footing the bill. Um, so we've talked a little bit tonight about how we're going to pay for this. Uh, I will tell you as a as a council person that tries his best to uh as much as my ability allows to watch the dollars and cents, I don't love paying for this by freezing positions. Uh, you know, if we're looking at freezing positions uh to pay for this,

why are we not instead looking at deleting positions? uh you know what happens if in the future we do this and slowly we start unfreezing some of those positions and all of a sudden now we're we're not you know we haven't we haven't paid for it. So that that weighs on me, right? It it weighs on me because ultimately it's how we we get this thing done for you. Um I think that another option a better option is looking at reform, right? uh not only because reform allows us a better way to pay for this package uh but it gives you a better picture of what you're actually looking at. Um you know I I don't feel like this has been done in a way tonight that the the administration did allude to it some uh but there are a lot of conversations happening around City Parish around benefits. uh you've got to know that we are looking at at doing things differently uh and that is ultimately going to impact what you pay for your benefits uh or and how your total compensation is structured. Uh I would be offended uh if I were an employee and I and I was being asked to come out and advocate for a pay raise but not necessarily knowing or or not having it be at the forefront that benefits were also being looked at. Um uh and and of course, you know, I I really thank Councilwoman Rocka for the work that she and and others have done on the impact of the retirement system. Honestly, in my own assessment, I I hadn't even gotten there yet, right? Um there's also conversations around City Parish about looking at the employee contribution to the retirement system though and going up some on that, you know? So, so that all has to happen, right? That all has to be a part of this process. Uh, and it all ought to happen in a way that is transparent to you and comes to you hopefully at one time, I believe. Right. Uh, because what I don't want to have you happen is be happy that you got a pay raise today, but then you're mad at the council in a couple

months because we're changing benefits, then you're mad at the council again, uh, and you feel like you got short changed. I'd rather do it all at once, uh, and give you a total picture there of what it's going to look like. I want to talk, and I will end up needing my extra five minutes. Uh, I want to talk a little bit tonight, uh, as I move past that about what a no vote means because I I do oppose this. Uh, I'm not for this. I want to give you a pay raise, but I don't think that this is the right way to do it. Um, it it's been said by a couple of my colleagues uh that a no vote means I do not see you. Uh, it's been said uh that I do not value you. I would tell you that's false. That's wrong. is false. Uh that narrative should be rejected wherever wherever it shows up. I will tell you that I value you enough to do this the right way. I value enough to take the time to make sure that you get every dollar possible. If we are to go through the exercise of reform, deleting positions where they need to be deleted, changing benefit structures, you could end up with a bigger pay raise. Wouldn't that be a good thing? I value you enough to make sure that you understand how your benefits may change as a part of a total compensation proposal. Uh, and so no, a no vote tonight does not mean that I don't see you. It doesn't mean that I don't value you. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see you get a pay raise. I do. Absolutely. Uh, and I'll just lastly address the the mayor's comments about this being a heart vote. Um, because that really spoke to me. Uh I will tell you that uh give you a little time if you Okay. I will tell you that uh that that did speak to me. Uh my dad is the hardest working man I know. Uh he was in a a maintenance foreman role, not at city

parish, but in a a similar type of of role uh in municipal services. uh and he made a similar salary to what a lot of folks here made. I mean that's how our family uh grew up and you know that's how that's how I ended up getting to where I am today. Uh so I see it right. I see how it's going to impact your families. I see how it's going to impact you as individuals, you and your career. And I think we have to do it right. I think we have to take our time to do it correctly. I don't think we I I do believe that we got here tonight uh as a result of politics, not from a sound process. And so that's what I am looking to do is follow a sound process and and that's that's how my that's what my vote will reflect tonight. Thank you,

Councilman Hurst. So, when I we talk about a process um and we sat in the mayor's conference room and they said, "Y'all are jumping the gun because we've already been working on this and doing our due diligence on this for about a year." And we have found ways not just to fund the police, but to fund the other positions as well based on the MAG study. And so what looked like a show of force and and and a non-bipartisan approach to give raises was really a forecast into a crystal ball that some of the comments that we've heard tonight were going to come about reasons we couldn't do it versus reasons we could. and anybody that's been in this council chambers over the last 5 years, the the union workers, the DPW workers, the firemen workers where I've shown up to your union meetings. Matter of fact, hosted your union meetings. I have been with Mr. Harold Greer and his staff. Sometimes it felt like the long ranger. the fight that we had to get the pay study done. It was about Jacobs and outsourcing wastewater treatment and taking somebody who's making $40,000 but only outsourcing personnel to pay them $136,000 ahead when you could have given it to a city parish worker. And when asked, if I paid that 136 to a city parish worker, how many vacancies will we have? And the answer is we'd have a line out the door. So in that instance, and this is years ago, it seemed that we valued our contractors more than we did our employees.

After that statement, Mayor Broom sent Dante to the mic and said, "We're going to support the pay study. Pay study got done." And when I asked why, one of the issues was they wanted to figure out how to fund it before they put it out there so they didn't disappoint the people in the audience. And I understand that. My response was, "You'll never know what you need to fund unless you get the study done." So, is it the chicken or the egg or the egg of the chicken, right? Well, this administration has done what they said the impossible was. I'm going to give a credit credit to one of my colleagues, Dwight Hudson. He and I sat on the phone probably last year about an hour or two hours just talking about funding. So, what he said, he's forward. I disagree with the process, but I don't think he's against the raises. We started off with $32 million needed to fund the raises based on the max studies. The fireman put a millage out there dropped it down to 25 million. That$2 million then based on frozen I'm sorry, departments that could fund themselves like EMS, mosquito abatement, library assist that independent funding dropped it down to 17.23 million. His suggestion was different than it is tonight because it was, "What about the vacant and frozen positions? What if we get rid of those? What will those numbers be?" And I said, "Dwight, you're a genius." And dropped it down to $12.9 million. So that's why when we heard 12.7 million strictly before police, we would like for $200,000 more dollars, we can fund everybody based on the max study. We're not against the police, but if we only have money for some, we're going to fund everybody. But if we have money for both, we're all for it. So, we got here as a part of the MAG study. The next step was to explore

restructuring pension. And we couldn't get to paying y'all until we started to do that, right? And so I sat on the um couple of meetings with Angie and Jay and um Jake and some of those folks that are part of that retirement commission and the response was even if we did kill pension and go 401k it would take 10 to 15 years to see any kind of return on investment because you can't force people off of a pension. Um, in recent conversations, um, there's about $752 million of, uh, unfunded liability, which is not just on the burden of city parish. It's Bre, it's the DAS, it's a bunch of other folks that make that up. So, if you hear that number, that's not just a city parish number. Um, when you start talking about the vacant positions, if they were filled, they would have put themselves additional liability on the pension fund cuz it would have been more people sewing into it. Cuz even though it was lower wages Yeah. Even though it was lower wages, it would have been more employees sewing into it. Now, would it balance out? I don't know. Because it depends on the market. If the market's doing well, it doesn't hurt the the liability of City Parish as much as it does when it's not doing well. Same way same way of 401k, right? Depend on the return on investment for the system is depend on the liability to the city. But the one applause that I want to give mayor Sid Edwards is that we walked in office and the work was already done. You know, and people always say, well, we want to do it the right way. There there's never going to be a perfect process or a perfect person. And so if not now, then when? The issue is always and I tell Fred this all the time about road work when it comes to move yards like man we we sat out and did a process it takes nine six to nine

years to do a road project when it's properly funded we talked about how do we improve that process with move to make go down to three or four and we started we're not work with William on getting some consultants in we sat out in the room but guess what we didn't stop doing road projects because the system is broken. We put more money into that pot and we're going to do it while it's broken and we're going to fix it to make sure because two things can be true at the same time. That the road work needs to be done and the process needs to be fixed. And I'm going to ask my colleagues today that if we talk about a better city, we talk about blight and having a reduction in the maintenance crew to clean up the stuff on the side of the roads and areas um that are heavily blighted that create um and placebased investment says when you change the place, you change what happens in the place. So if you want a better northbound rules, you're going to need more workers to get there. Our black department has zero dollars to contempt houses, to knock them down, do other stuff. But if we had the workers, we wouldn't need the contractors. And one of the things that we're not talking about is of the $752 million of unfunded liability, um, a part of that is St. George's responsibility to make a payment to us. And based on the retirement system, um, today's numbers, and there'll be another number that comes out on Mar on May 28th, but based on today's numbers, and this is directly from the actuary, by the way, um, pull it back up. Well, it's somewhere between 6 and $13 million over a 15 million I mean over a 15-year period based on the 7% to 15% that they

are due to pay to the retirement system. So those numbers will balance out anything that we do today by far. So what we're seeing is liability um today is no longer a liability tomorrow and that should happen within the next 30 to 45 days and from the legal process based on the plan of government or the ordinance it says that it has to be settled within 90 days of negotiation. So it may not fully be the 6 million but if it's three or four it still covers the liability that we assume from from the unfunded portion of the retirement system. So everything that we talked about today is truly being addressed. And if we if we decide to go to a 401k tomorrow, that's fine. It affects new employees, not current employees. And if we decide to go to a 401k today with current employees, we would have other unfunded liabilities to pay for those employees, creating more debt to then transition them to a 401k. And we can't force them off. So all the stuff we're talking about, it's irrelevant to a raise. It's irrelevant because it can still be worked on at the same time. And as we fix those problems and release more money, I want to make sure that everybody is talking about broken processes. When we fix those processes, after we give you the 4%, we take the money that we get from that fixed process and put it back and give you a second raise. So, let's start where we are. Let's support our workers today. And then as we fix the process tomorrow, make sure that that money goes back into the folks who dedicate themselves to making sure that the city parish runs like a welloiled machine. So I thank you for what you do. I thank you for your daily investment. I thank you for your fight for not standing down for speaking on the mic. I hear so many people saying the word about their jobs. You know what? If I get on the mic, I get fired tomorrow. Will you come talk to me and everybody else up here,

please? If you become a target because you spoke, your boss is going to become a target because he fired you. So, I just want you to know that we have your back the same way you have ours when we call you to serve our constituents. Thank you for what you do. God bless you. And I I I implore my colleagues today that two things can be true. We can give them a raise and work on the process at the same time. Thank you,

Councilman Go. Thanks, sir.

Well, I'll start with saying this is this is for me an easy vote. Um, it's easy to sit in a room full of City Parish employees and say, "I'm going to vote yes on a pay increase for City Parish employees." It's easy to know when I go out in that hallway, there's a couple of pats on the back. any any elected official loves that wants that. It's it's the caveat to that though is it's intellectually dishonest to look at all of you and say this pay raise is made in isolation and to say that we don't have deferred maintenance issues in this parish. We don't have outdated facilities in this parish. We don't have underfunded agencies in this parish. We don't have equipment needs in this parish. And those issues will continue to come up for this council. And we're all going to look around and say, "Where's the money for that?" And so, kudos to my colleagues, Council Member Rocka, Council Member Hudson, for saying the quiet thing out loud. It comes from discussions around long-term payments, benefits, adjustments, changes, and what does retirement look like going forward. It's intellectually dishonest to not look at you in the eye and say, "Here's three and a half% wonderful, but hard conversations are in the very near future." When you hear a presentation titled total strategic workforce realignment, please understand that means changes are coming. And and I won't sit up here and make the easy vote and say, "Look me, I'm supporting you and not tell you, but in

the near future when we're staring down the barrel of 20, 30, $40 million worth of needs, how do we find that money?" I won't sit here and say, "Well, the money's there so we can do the pay raise." We have a lot of needs in the city parish and and doing this tonight, it's an easy vote, but it makes the math a lot harder and and we should be transparent about that. We should be very honest about that. And I will be I will entertain conversations around what these long-term benefits and retirement look like. I will I will engage in those conversations. because I think we operate in an outdated system and raising pay per the MAG study was part of that. But that MAG study also said you're going too much on the benefit side and and we have to look critically at it. So again, easy vote tonight. I'm with you. The hard part comes in the near future. Appreciate y'all. Councilman Dun Jr.,

thank you. I I agree with Councilman Goday with a whole lot of what he said about we have a lot of needs in the parish, infrastructure, deferred maintenance, underfunded parts of the departments and government. But I would appeal to him and anyone else that our most important asset is our people.

And if we don't take care of our people and support our people, that infrastructure, deferred maintenance, these departments don't run. So, we need to support our people. There are some changes coming. I don't think that's a secret to any of us. I don't think that's a secret to any of you. Gone are the days of individuals working on the job for 30 years or in one organization for 30, 40 years. That's been replaced with job hopping. People looking for adequate competitive salaries. You talk to the average worker today, they could care less about benefits. They want to get paid a adequate livable wage so they can take care of their families and have a decent quality of life. And I want to reinforce any reforms to retirement does not affect current employees. So your retirement will stay intact. We will advocate that it stays intact. I'm in alignment with him and Councilwoman Rocka on that. any reforms to the retirement system will only affect new hires at the time we institute it. So we have to be totally transparent when we talk about this situation. Also funding sources you know it's best practice to have you know we budget every year November we're budgeting and have a backup of three to five year financial plan. Councilman Husten has, you know, his issues with the funding source. And I get that. Some of us may like this funding source. Some of us may not like that funding source, but it's a funding source that we can use right now. Next year may be another funding source. We heard 3, four, five months ago that we was in a financial crisis

and we had to lay people off and then two, three months later, you know, we was pulling money off the couch as William likes to say. So the financial realities of government and city parish government changes based on tax revenue, based on new business, based on reforms that we make as administration and council. They're going to be changes. They're going to be es and flows. Our staff, the financial team does a great job projecting and analyzing and reviewing what's available. And sometimes there's a dire day and sometimes there are surpluses. And so we have to respond and react to the reality of the moment. The administration did a great job with identifying these hundred position that could be frozen to take care of our people and I think we act on it. I think we support it. That may not be the funding source going forward. It may be another one. But just as we budget year to year, we will cross that bridge when we get to it. We have no choice. If we don't take care of our people with action and supporting them financially by giving them the raises, they're they're going to continue to leave out the door and look for other opportunities. So again, I urge my colleagues to support this item. Okay. Substitute motion for deferral. Councilman Hudson removes a second from that. So we only have one motion on the floor. Motion by Councilman Kenny, second by Councilwoman Coleman to approve. Is there any opposition? Councilman Hudson is opposed. We're going to vote on the machines. Is everybody's machines up? I know we were having issues earlier.

What were we voting on first? The only one motion. Oh, you redrew it. Okay. I can vote for you, Councilwoman Harris.

Okay. All right. Machines are open on the motion to approve. Motion carries. All right, we're going to do a roll call vote. Councilman Go. It's a roll call vote. Councilman Go, yes. Councilwoman Adams, yes.

Councilman Dunn Jr., yes. Councilman Hurst, yes. Councilwoman Rocka, yes. Councilman Null, yes. Councilman Hudson, no. Councilwoman Amarosa, yes. Councilwoman Coleman, yes. Councilman Kenny, yes. Councilwoman Harris, yes. Thank you.

Before we move on to the next item, just a point of personal privilege. It's been a lot of discussion about what we actually did. Uh Mayor Pro Tim talked about colleagues who wasn't, you know, totally clear on on what took place. And I'd like to give uh Miss Pearson from HR just to talk about what we did as it relates to the MAG study. Um I think Brandon kind of glossed over it. Everybody won't necessarily get a 3.5 or 4% raise. And I don't want to steal your thunder, but the the the the approach was to bring everybody to affordable livable wage. And can you talk through exactly what just took place?

So the the MAD consultants recommended that the pay study is first implemented by increasing our employee salaries by 3.5%. So that means each individual employee salary will increase by 3.5%. So that's the minimum pay adjustment that each employee that's impacted by these pay adjustments will receive. The second step is that those employees will be placed on a new pay scale. And so that is the structure of implementing this new pay structure. Thank you.

All right. Moving on. We're going to uh item 47 as a request by the department to delete this item. Amend the 2026 pay plan for classified unclassified non-classified contract fire police employees in the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge. Adopted by ordinance 19726 so as to add new classification director of contracts and delete one special assistant parish attorney position of parish attorney and human resources director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to councel. Motion by Councilman Hurst. Second second by Councilman Hudson to delete. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. 48. Again, request by the department to delete amend 2026 alignment of positions for the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge, adopted by ordinance 19727 so as to change the alotment of the parish attorney administration to add one director of contracts and delete one special assistant parish attorney by the parish attorney and human resources director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by councilman Hurst, second by councilman go. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 49. There's a request to defer this item um until

um what the first what is that's the last meeting of May. Last meeting in May. Two weeks. Okay. Two weeks. Thanks.

Amend the 2026 pay plan for the classified unclassified non-classified contract fire and police employees of the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge adopted ball ordinance 19726 so as to make the following changes effective May 16th, 2026. Increase the pay grade of the parish attorney classification by councilwoman Lori Adams, Councilman Dwight Hudson, and human resources director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. Motion by Councilman Hur, second by Councilwoman Rocka. Is there any opposition? Excuse me. Motion carries to defer for two weeks. Item 50 is a request to delete this item authorizing the mayor president to enter into an agreement with Let's Fix It LLC in an amount not to exceed $66,000 from funding provided from home-P CDBG public services and CDBG administration for the purpose of co-designing the city's healthy housing program which includes co-designing the city's healthy housing program and building partnerships to advance related policies and practices commencing March 1st, 2026 and expiring March 31st, 2027 by Community Development Director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. Is there a motion? Motion by Councilman Hurst. Request to delete. Yeah. Second by Councilman Go. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. 51. Authorizing settlement the matter of uh request. There's a request to delete this item as well from the department. authorizing settlement of the matter entitled Paula Williams versus City of Baton Rouge, Parish of East Baton Rouge, and Patrick Winnman in an amount of 300,000 plus court cost an amount of $333 for a total amount of $300,333 and appropriating $300,333 for such purposes by the parish attorney. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilman

Hurst, second by Councilman Goate to delete the item. Any opposition? Motion carries. 52. Authorizing mayor president to execute cooperative endeavor agreement with Baton Rouge Regional Airport for the supply of municipal services by the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge to to the Baton Rouge Regional Airport Authority and to sign all documents in connection therewith by the aviation director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to councel. We have a motion. Motion by Councilman Kenny. Second by Councilman Hurst. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 53, a resolution ordering and calling an election to be held in the parish of East Baton Rouge state of Louisiana on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 to authorize the parish to renew and levy a collection of half mill adorum tax on all property subject to taxation within the boundaries of the parish of East Baton Rouge, state of Louisiana for a period of 10 years, commencing with tax collection for the year 2027 and annually thereafter to and including the year 2036 to provide funds for the purpose of purchasing, maintaining, and operating machinery, facilities and equipment necessary in the eradication, abatement or control of mosquitoes, other anthropods of public health importance and rodents and maintaining adequate administrative and support staff in connection therewith. making application to the state bond commission providing notice that a public hearing regarding the adoption of this resolution shall be held on Wednesday, May 13, 2026 at 4 pm at the regular meeting place of the Metropolitan Council, 3rd Floor, City Hall, room 348 222 St. Louis Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and providing for other matters in connection therewith by mosquito abatement and rodent control district. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. Motion by Councilman Hurst, second by Councilman Kenny. There any opposition? Motion carries. 54. Requesting planning commission to review and amend

applicable sections of the unified development code related to data centers by Councilwoman Carolyn Coleman, Councilman Rowdy God, and Councilman Anthony Kenny. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing now, we'll go to council. Councilman Kenny. All right, colleagues, just real quickly, um, with the rising development of data centers, not just, um, in Louisiana, but across the country, uh, we got together with the planning and zona commission. We saw we don't have we don't have too much direct language around data centers, the AI centers. And so, um, this is not the Paris taking a position for against data centers, but it's more so just saying we have direct language within the UDC code. So, in case somebody want to propose it, we have a public hearing. We have that direct language in the UDC code. So Ryan and his team will go out um do their due diligence and come back in a couple months with a recommendation to add to the UDC. And with that I call move call for a motion to approve.

Thank you Councilman. Motion by Councilman Kenny, second by Councilwoman Coleman. District 1 has a whole lot of open land and a river right next to it if somebody wants to bring a data center. Just saying. Any opposition? Motion carries. 55. I've authorized the mayor president to execute amendment number one of the professional services agreement with Southern Environmental Management and Specialties, Inc. to increase contract amount by $50,000 for a total contract amount not to exceed $100,000 by the development director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to councel. We have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Amarosa, second by Councilwoman Coleman. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. 56. Authorizing mayor president on behalf of the Department of Building and Grounds Building Maintenance Division to amend the contract between City of Baton Rouge and Romeli janitorial services to increase the contract amount by $35,923 for a revised not to exceed amount of $135,112 by the building and grounds director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing no go to councel. We have a motion. Motion by Councilman Hurst. Have a second. Second by Councilman Kenny. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. And 57. Authorizing the mayor president. Oh, wait.

Did I just do 57? Yeah, you did.

Okay. Apologies. Authorizing mayor president on behalf of department of building and grounds building maintenance division to amend contract between city of Baton Rouge and O janitorial services to increase contract amount by $22,13320 for revised not to exceed amount of $130,10040 by the building and grounds director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing no go to councel. Have a motion. Motion by councilwoman Coleman. Second by counciloman Hurst. Any opposition? Motion carries. 58. Authorizing mayor president to execute amendment number five of Grady Crawford Construction Company for construction services in connection with the annual stormwater concrete line canal repair contract resulting in an increase in contract in amount of 200,000 for a total contract amount not to exceed $3,541,183.37 by environmental services director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none go to councel. We have a motion. Motion by councilwoman Amarosa. Second by Councilman Hurst. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 59, rescending and directing clerk court to cancel notice to attend recorded on May 8th, 2025 in the matter of city of Baton Rouge verse David R. Dunar and Beverly Parker Dunar, 1823 Arkansas Street. Reason for the owner is obtaining a permit and remodeling the home. This is by Councilwoman Coleman. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing no, go to councel. Motion by councilwoman Coleman. Second by Councilman Hurst. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 60, authorizing settlement of the pre-litigation claim of Abigail Mitchell for damages resulting from an auto accident caused by Mosquito Bay rodent control employee in an amount of $16,000 by the parish attorney. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to councel. We have a motion. Anybody? Motion by Councilwoman Adams.

A second. Councilman Dun Jr. Any opposition? Motion carries.

Hey y'all, I want to take a personal point of privilege to come in our Tedric Suit today. So, I brought him up here. He looks really good. Y'all get a round applause. My boy 13 council member today, man. 13 council member. He look very handsome, man. Everybody up here was talking about you, so I wanted to show off your suit to everybody. That's it.

Item 61, authorizing settlement of the pre-litigation claim of Red Six Media for damages resulting from sewer backups in the claimment's building for a total amount of $150,284.15 by the parish attorney. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. Motion by Councilman Go, second by Councilwoman Adams. Any opposition? Motion carries. 62. Authorize the mayor president to execute a contract for engineering services with all south consulting engineers for services associated with move capacity project Ottoman Avenue sidewalks from Jefferson Highway to Government Street and amount not to exceed $247,21162 by transportation drains director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item?

Council members, you should have received one email comment in opposition to item 62. Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Adams. Second by Councilman Herz. Is there any opposition? Motion carries.

Item 63, authorizing Mayor President to execute a supplemental agreement number 17 to a contract for engineering services with Evans Graves Engineering, Inc. for additional engineering services associated with Mall Louisiana Boulevard to Perkins Connector and an amount not to exceed $16,800. Bring the total contract amount not to exceed $3,870,829.39 by transportation and drains director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. Motion by Councilwoman Adams, second by Councilman Go. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 64, authorizing Mayor President to execute supplemental agreement number two to contract for construction inspection services with Victoria Consulting Services LLC for additional construction inspection services associated with MoveBR enhancement project Baton Rouge bus rapid transit in an amount not to exceed $157,250. Bring the total contract amount not to exceed $550,375 by transportation drainage director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item.

Council members, you should have received one email comment in opposition to item 64.

Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Coleman, second by Councilman Hurst. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. And I'm 65. authorizing the use of FHWA transportation alternative program funds for the amount of 437,500 to satisfy 20% local match required by the Louisiana Department of Transportation Development for the North Ardenwood Drive sidewalk Florida Boulevard to Greenwell Springs project and also confirming that city parish shall maintain the project after final acceptance and accepting legal liability for the project upon completion by transportation drainage director. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item?

Council members, you should have received one email comment in opposition to item 65. I

say no. Go to councel. We have a motion. Motion by councilwoman Adams. Second by councilwoman Amarosa. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. No administrative matters tonight. People learn lessons, I guess. Appointments. uh hospital service district number one board of commissioners Lane Regional Medical Center consideration of replacing Dr. Reagan Elkins who is not seeking reappointment. This is a four-year term. Uh spoke with the CEO of the hospital. Anyone wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, go to council. I spoke with the CEO. They he's talking to a couple of the doctors. Has to be a doctor from uh Lane Hospital uh to serve. He's talking to a couple of them. He should have an answer for us um soon. But uh we're going to I think some of the board members want to meet with them anyway. So they asked if we can defer until June 10th. So recommended a I'll make a motion to defer until June 10th. Second by Councilwoman Coleman. Any opposition? Motion carries. All right. 67 through 71. We'll take together. Um board of appeal concurring in the me mayor president's replacement of Greg Flores who is not seeking reappointment. This is a three-year term. Concurring with the mayor president's replacement of Todd Man who is seeking a reappointment. This is a three-year term concurring in the mayor president's reappoint or replacement of Floyd Luster. This is a three-year term concurring in the mayor president's replacement of Michael Abbas who is not seeking reappoint. This is a three-year term concurring with the mayor president's replacement of Fritz Embaw who is not seeking reappoint. This is a three-year term. There is nobody on the current ballot. Rachel speak

there was I think some confusion um around people on the board. So Mr. uh Luster and Mr. Imba are seeking reappointment. Um and we received two we have two replacements that applied um Shane Nicholas and uh Joseph Yarro that we're I that I would recommend replacement of Mr. Mr. Greg Flores and Mr. Todd man both uh Shane is a professional land surveyor and professional engineer and Joseph Yarro is a professional engineer as well. Joseph. I think that's still We still miss one.

Miss one. I know. I don't have another name. So, okay. So, Floyd Luster and who was the other that wants to stay? Fritz. The last one. Fritz. So, we don't have a replacement for Michael Abbas. No, I do not. But I I told him that he must name a replacement for me. Okay. So, we're going to defer item 70 for two weeks. Yes.

Okay. So, let's vote on 67, 68, 69, and 71. uh as Shane Nicholas, Joseph Yarro, and reappointing Floyd Luster and Fritz Zimbog. Motion by Councilwoman Coleman. Second by Councilman Hudson. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. Item 70, motion to defer for two weeks by Councilwoman Coleman. Second by Councilman Hudson. Any opposition? Motion carries. Change orders. We're going to take 72 through 74 together. 72 Baton Rouge Police Department Training Academy renovations contracted Centurion Construction Management. Change order amount $281,820. 73 Burbank Drive at Pelicans Pelican Lakes Traffic Signal contractor Referred Electric Inc. Change order amount $45,500.36. 74. Renovations to Scotlandville Branch Library Phase 2. Contractor Sienna Construction LLC change order amount $175,648. Anyone here wishing to speak on these items? Seeing no go to council. We have a motion.

Motion by Councilman Hur, second by Councilwoman Adams. Any opposition? Motion carries.

Any All right. Acceptance of low bids. Item 75, annual contract for interstate mowing, litter, and trash collection. Low bids facility maintenance specialist LLC. $492,66659. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? See, no. Go to councel. I want to talk about this a little bit. So, this contract is for mowing. I just passed some some pictures around. This is for mowing um based on the cooperative endeavor agreement that we have with uh DOTD. So, what some may not realize is we agree to take care of not just the interstate, but a bunch of different properties for DOTD every year under a cooperative endeavor agreement. And they pay us for doing some of that work. So, this contract here, $492,66659, which has gone up um or I'm sorry, it's gone uh down $5,000 from last year, is just one of uh a handful of different contracts that are part of that cooperative endeavor agreement with DOTD. right now currently every every year uh we pay or as of last year we pay 1,125,679.15 for um mowing litter trash collection and maintenance of DOTD responsibility areas. We get reimbursed part as per that uh cooperative endeavor agreement $418,275.

So we lose $700,000 for the uh benefit of doing someone else's work, which is ridiculous. I don't understand why we do it. It needs to stop. I looked at the contract. God bless you. I looked at the contract. It it ends in June, the cooperative endeavor agreement. Otherwise, I would put it on the agenda for us to send notice within 30 days to cancel that cooperative endeavor. We should not, we've talked about it a lot tonight. For the budgetary wos that we have, there is no reason that we should be doing someone else's work and be paying $700,000 extra to do it. We could just as easily, and here's the thing. I bet when we started this, we actually had the the mowers. We were cutting the grass and we were using our employees and we were saying we can pick it up. We can do it better. We can do it faster and we can do it cheaper. We're contracting it all out. We are literally a middleman for DOTD saying we we'll take care of this for you and we're paying $700,000 extra to do it. It's a joke. It's ridiculous. There's no reason we should continue doing it. So I want to my motion on this is to delete this item and furthermore when this contract or this cooperative endeavor comes down from DOTD I don't I don't want to renew that in June when the current one ends because I think it's ridiculous. We can give them a full list of all the people that we contract with on their behalf and they can contract with them themselves and cut us out of it and we save $700,000. And then the pictures that you see, these are pictures from I sent my black person out. I said, "Go take pictures of all the tall grass in every area you can find it." This is just some of them because I'm sure I've shared with y'all it takes 45 minutes to get across my district. So, these are parish roads

responsibilities. These are the the areas we're responsible for and we're not taking care of them, but we're paying $700,000 to take care of states extra that we're not being reimbured for. It's ridiculous. We need to take care of what we need to take care of and stop worrying about them. Let them take care of it. Yes, we're going to get calls. Maybe if they're not doing it fast enough, that's fine. We can give them Dixon's number. We can give them Barber's number. Everybody else, that's fine. We can tell them who to call. Call Rick. Doesn't matter. It's not our responsibility, and we don't need to be paying extra to try to do their work for them. Councilman Hurst, you already know. Come to the mic and let's talk about it. Y'all standing in line. There you go. So, um, we saw the the negative impact of what happens when you don't cut it. But my question for you is is this a burden on your department or can you just explain from your perspective how it's set up and um what your suggestion would be to move forward or not move forward and uh Mr. Daniel, you can chime in on that as well.

Well, good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Uh, I don't consider any other services we provide a burden. That's our duty as a city parish work original. Yeah.

So, I just wanted to start there. But, uh I haven't I'm not familiar with the package you just gave out. Uh council member Noah, I'd love to take a look at it. But for this particular contract, I I'll speak to this particular contract with it involves interstate mowing and litter collection on the I 10 I12 corridors. Uh thank you. Okay. So, for this one, uh, DOTD does pay us about $267,000, which under this contract would only cover about nine cycles of mowing. And nine cycles of mowing is not enough for the state capital. What we're doing is 16 cycles of mowing. That 16 cycles of mowing and spraying to give the capital area the look it deserves. So, we are supplementing that to the tune of about $224,000 according to my last calculation. Uh, but this the bids we received are lower than what we had last year. Plus, we also have St. George about to take over their portion of the interstate, like you said, at the end of this current contract, July 1st. So, they'll take care of their section from the parish line out through St. George. Um, so you're looking at about 30,000 a cycle. Um, we pay for 16 cycles and DOTD pays for about nine of those cycles. But when you drive out of the parish, it is a noticeable difference along the interstate corridor. Soon as you exit Baton Rouge, you see a few inches higher grass along that interstate. And I'm not I don't want to condemn any other municipality, but we're the state capital and that's why we do the uh extra uh cycles. There's parts of the parish where it's a few inches higher, too, though, just FYI.

Oh, internally, we have a spray program that helps suppresses the grass growth to help us uh reduce the amount of cycles for our in-house crew. Uh the only spraying that we do along the interstate is along the guard rails and hard to access areas. So, this is acceptance of a low bid. So, forget all the legal reasons that we should go ahead with this because I'm sure the parish attorneys can tell you that we are um somewhat obligated to accept the low bid. Um I think Reggie put it very well. This is a capital city and we have worked hard to present an image that when you drive through it, we don't look like the trashy capital city. And I mean, we everybody's got a problems in their district. I get it. But we work very hard. Uh, and y'all talked about the limited resources, and we do have limited resources. But if we're going to do this, Mr. Mayor Pro Tim and I'm 100% for it. Like I said, this has been a 30 Well, I can speak to it from 2010 forward. Uh Fred can speak to it. Well, Fred left. So, uh smart Mr. Rafford's, you know, he's a very smart guy. Uh but, uh he can speak to it, you know, prior prior to that. But we have uh we work with DOTD on a number of other things. Uh there's a lot of state routes through the city. Uh and they're responsible for taking care of them. And we hold their feet to the fire on those even though they're right in the middle of the city. And if you want to do this, fine. When we go to the

negotiating table in June, I'm 100% for making a change. But I I just can't see not mowing the grass all summer long and uh letting it get out of control and have everybody drive through the city. So So I'm going to interrupt you to one second cuz you're on my time. I don't want to take my second nickel, but shouldn't the state say the same thing since it's the capital city? The state should say all of our state buildings are downtown. Um some of our our ba major landmarks are in Baton Rouge. They should have the same pride that we have.

I I I agree. And uh but they've got they're responsible for the uh 64 parishes. So I think that everybody in every parish is telling them that. But you know, we've got to have some pride in ourselves as well. Councilman Dun Jr. Y'all can stay right there. Well, I was going to say it's probably not a question for Regina cuz you know, William was probably here and executed the contract when it first began. It's probably more so him. I'm not that old. Councilman, I'm getting that old, but I'm not that old yet.

I think y'all y'all answering the question uh uh responding to an observation that was made. I don't think anybody disagrees that we should take pride with the capital city. We take responsibility to keep it clean. I think the point that the pro team is making is is it our responsibility and should we be taking a $500, $700,000 loss to take on the state's responsibility? So, so what I would like you to respond to is the budgetary deficit that we taking on to take on the state's responsibility. Couldn't we just encourage them to do the same amount of cycles that you doing it? Do you think it's prudent for us uh to take that much pride of a $700,000 loss to do that work?

Honestly, I do think it's worth cutting the interstate and spending the extra money. That's not the question I'm asking, William. Is it it's not our responsibility to do it? Why can we not hold the state accountable for doing it? That's my question.

Okay. So, the state has a that's an easy answer. The state has a certain standard. They will like the grass to be high. They don't care. We don't have the same standard. Um, we want to we want our parish to look nicer. I'm not saying that we're perfect, Councilman. I mean we we try to cut the grass as best as we can but people passing through the city we try to get that done and one of the things that we are looking at and I asked Reggie to look at this is what if we started cutting it again ourselves we can cut it nine times councilman and it can be high and it you know when people drive through they can form their opinion of the city we would propose that they have a better opinion than what dod wants us wants them to have. Let me ask you this. Were you aware of this deficit? This amount of deficit?

I was I've been aware of this amount of deficit since 2010. So when we go to the negotiating table with them about this arrangement, what is their response when you bring this to their attention, which I'm sure you brought to their attention. This is all the money we have. This is the exact same conversation we had about traffic lights earlier in the year, and they came up on that. And uh you know we we can ask them for more money. We can ask them to cut it more often, but this is the standard that they have for the all the interstates in in this in uh that run through Louisiana that they want it cut this many times. It and I will tell you this, with all the rain,

it's going to grow a lot faster. It's a significant deficit. And I thank um Mayor Pro Tim for for identifying. I think we need to be looking at things like this. Um, I'mma bring up move EBR because as Fred knows and as you know like a lot of those uh projects that's in move EBR state highways and the administration and the departments at the time said basically what you're saying the state is not going to do it. They hadn't done it. So we take pride and we're going to do it and we accepted that responsibility. The taxpayers funded a lot more than pride in in snarling traffic. Yeah. But but the same approach was taken. I get it. But I think we need to look at it and try to push harder for them to

I don't disagree. We've pushed hard and you know if you want us to cut it nine times, we can do that. But I that would not be my recommendation. I don't think he's saying or we're saying cut it less. We're saying get more money. Get more money so we're not at a $700,000 deficit. I would love to I would love to get more money. Uh, like I said, we have a cooperative endeavor agreement with DT current agreement expire June 30. The end? Yeah, at the end uh end of summer. Okay. Thanks. I just Councilman Hudson.

Yeah, just I'll I'll let you speak in just a second. Um, I want to first say I think the mayor proim uh brings up a good point. This is certainly like we talked about uh with the traffic lights previously on on anything where we get reimbursed from the state. We don't ever get enough money. I mean, that's that's that's been the story forever, right? Um we don't get it on road transfer credits. We don't get it on traffic lights. We don't get it on mowing. There's probably some canals that we don't get it on that we help maintain. Not, you know, whatever it is. Um my hesitation with the motion at hand is uh you know you guys have done a great job of managing this contract. I can recall I think it was 2019 or 2018 maybe when we first initiated the litter component into this um and it wasn't managed great. Uh but you have been enforcing that litter component. I can see it on the interstate lately where it it has been better. our our city is looking better and I would be very hesitant to uh disrupt that. I I totally sympathize with rural parts of the parish having tall grass. Um because I have it in my area. Um St. George is doing a little bit better job with it now. Uh but we've we've certainly had that issue. I I I just know that on I 10, you know, there's 130,000 130,000 vehicles about that travel that roadway every day. Um, and it matters to those people as they go through our parish what that area looks like. I know it matters to me as I come downtown and I do different things. Um, so, uh, I am 100% with you, Mayor Pro Tim, on going after more money, pressuring the state wherever we can. I I just don't accept that this is the right mechanism to do it. So, I'll make a motion, a substitute motion to approve. So,

I don't disagree with some of what's been said, and I do take pride in what what our our city looks like, but we know there is there's not enough money, there's not enough people to take care of just what we're supposed to take care of. And I feel like if we're going to provide this service for the state, not only should they cover the entirety of the cost of it, they should probably cover it more. We're we're we're it's cost us $1.1 million. We should probably give 1.2 if we're going to procure it and handle it. And it's all contracts. And I y'all do a great job with the contracts. I'm not saying any of the process is bad. It's just we're middlemaning this to lose money. That's the only reason is we're middlemaning it to lose money. I feel like they can easily, like I said, we can give them a full list. Here's everybody we contract with to provide this service for you. Can you just contract with them instead?

And they will and and they will, mayor pro him for nine cuts and it will look like whatever like like Pride and Chainville probably. It will not it will not look it would not look good. And we we spend the extra money to manicure the the roads so that when people 130 carous a day.

So and I agree with you William, but here's the thing. I would argue that when we are flush with cash, then we can spend those extra dollars to make things look how we want. But there are a lot of needs that need to be covered long before we care about how good it looks when it's someone else's responsibility. I think we need to take care of our own responsibilities and how things look first. And when and when we when we're overflowing, we when we do all the reforms we talked about tonight and everything is fantastic and we're and we just got all this extra money. We're like, what do we do with all this extra money? Guess what state? We'll cut it a few more times for you and we're going to take care of the bill. But but right now is not the time to do that.

It's definitely a matter of priorities. But and I will just tell you when I was growing up my dad made me cut our yard was a lot. I grew I grew up on a farm grass all next door next door there was a empty lot. He made me cut that. I said why why do I have to cut that empty lot? Because we want it to look good for our neighborhood and that's the same reason we do the cuts. The state the state will cut it the state will cut it nine times with other people's dollars is the state will cut it nine times and it will not look good. So we cut it the a few extra times to keep it right. Well, and that's subjective and I think we'd need to let the state deal with the repercussions of what it looks like if they care.

Well, we but it shouldn't be our responsibility and it's not our responsibility. I did speak with parish attorney's office on this um and what it would look like and there are provisions regardless. So I'm not concerned about deleting the item tonight. So again I make a motion to delete. I know I don't know if there was a second behind it. Um maybe I didn't have time. You got we got a second from Councilman Hurst. Regin thank you again. I've uh because the wife was rude and didn't give up.

When they when we put in the request, we always ask for additional money from uh the DOTD. Uh in the past 2 years, 24 and 25, they did give us some extra funding for litter and an additional mowing cycle, which was about $30,000. So, they they did pitch in a little extra uh in 24 and 25. So, we're going to lose 670. Oh, I mean that my numbers are a bit different from what uh council member mayor pro Tim No presented. This was from Bart Hutton a couple months back compiled it. But give us yours Re.

So what I have here is that DOTD pays us 267K which I said covers nine cycles. We do 16 cycles and there's a $224,000 gap. That's the gap. And that's just this contract. That's what I was saying. multiple contracts though on DOTD stuff that are part of that cooperative endeavor. I have to take a look at that. Go ahead. Council Regin, you can stay there. William, come to the mic, please.

So, when you when you talk about on my time now, hold on my time and start the time over adjusted. I didn't use a minute and 8 seconds. But um so when I make a phone call to the maintenance department and I say I need something done in North. By the way, let me give Regginal a round of freaking applause because you do an amazing job. This is not a shot at you. I texted Reginal. When was that bad storm? Regginal? Saturday night or

something like that. I went and checked on the community center at about 8 or 9:00 at night. I literally was there 15 minutes. I texted Reginal. A tree branch the size of this whole little U had f had fallen in the street and blocked the road for community center. By the time I left my office 15 minutes later, DPW was coming behind me to cut the tree up. So, I just want to tell you, you do an amazing job. That's why I was saying the other night with administrative matter. You got that? Did an amazing job. But here's the deal. How much more work could we do with $700,000 in the maintenance department? A lot of times I get told no about ditches, work orders, and things that we are responsible for because there's not enough money to fix the the the the um sink holes in somebody's yard. There's not enough money to do a whole lot of other things. And where I agree with Brandon is that when I make those phone calls, I don't care about the state's responsibility because they elected me to do the things that matter in my district based on the tax dollars that we collect. And so the one thing that makes people jump off their behinds is those cameras that sit in those corners over there. So when they start pointing at us and we say we've done our job, this is the state's job, I guarantee they'll find more money to do it or the people that put these folks in office, we'll make sure that the next election cycle they're reminded of it. And so if we don't start holding them accountable, then um the people that put us in office are going to start holding us accountable for what we're not doing in the communities that they elected us to repair and maintain and to ensure that where they live, work, and play is at the highest standard. That's all I got to say. Y'all can have the rest of my time if you want.

Okay. So, one more thing I'd say is uh when you talk about your boulevards and rideways, uh those areas get more cycles also than what the DOT pays for. Those get about uh say Florida for instance, all of the from the airline all the way out to the parish line. There's a lot of grass in that area from your medians to your uh service roads and those get cut but uh I think 35 times a year and the state does not pay the full amount for all of those cycles. But just imagine driving down Florida Boulevard with with tall grass according to what DOT pays. It would be completely unsightly and that's airline as well.

They have a certain standard and that's the standard they apply throughout the state. We can choose to be with that standard or we can choose to have a higher standard.

Thank you. We We have a motion and a second to delete. We have a substitute motion by Councilman Hudson to approve. Is there a second or Yeah. Is there a second to the substitute motion to approve? Yeah. Second by by Councilman Goay. We're going to vote on the substitute motion to approve. First, we'll vote on the machines. Y'all ready? Council members, machines are open. On the substitute motion to approve.

Substitute. Your substitute. Substitute motion to approve. Yeah. Motion fails. Now we can vote on the original motion which is to delete the item. Machines are open on the motion to delete item 75.

Motion carries. All right. Item 76, landscape maintenance of city parish owned lots and FEMA owned properties. Low bid Vast LLC $44,325. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilman Goay, second by the chair. Any opposition? Motion carries. Adam 77 Perkins Road overpass Raymond Avenue to Christian Street project Luster Group LLC 1,770,466.50. Anyone here wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Coleman, second by Councilman Hurst. Is there any opposition? Motion carries. All right. Other item which is an emergency 78 in accordance with ordinance 16442. This item must be declared an emergency by 2/3 vote of the Metropolitan Council authorizing the mayor president on behalf of the city of Baton Rouge Parish of East Baton Rouge to enter into a lease agreement with Admiral Land LLC for the lease of space at 445 North 12th Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 7082 for a term of 5 years at a rate of 1359 per square foot based on 5,355 square ft with said lease by the parish attorney. Need a motion to declare this item an emergency. Motion by Councilwoman Adams. We have a second by Councilman Hurst. Any opposition on the motion to declare an emergency? Seeing none, we're going to have a public hearing on the item. Anyone wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll go to council. We have a motion. Motion by Councilwoman Adams. Second by Councilwoman Amarosa to approve. Any opposition? Motion carries. Councilwoman Amarosa.

Motion to adjourn. Meeting's adjourned. Thank y'all for your continued service. God bless.