Unanticipated costs take lump from ‘surplus’

• By BOB ANDERSON
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Nov 20, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

LIVINGSTON — When the Livingston Parish government created its 2008 budget a year ago, it projected a $3.2 million surplus at the end of this year.

A newly amended budget prepared by the administration shows that the surplus has fallen to $322,056, and that’s even before the parish gets hit with millions of dollars of debris cleanup costs from Hurricane Gustav.

For this year, what is “killing the general fund” are unanticipated costs involving the parish jail, Parish Finance Director John Gabel said Wednesday.

He projects the parish’s share of that debris cleanup cost to be about $4 million, which the parish will have to try to and fund from next year’s budget.

The parish doesn’t have to pay its share of the debris cleanup until the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays its portion next year, Parish President Mike Grimmer said.

FEMA usually pays 75 percent of the cost, but the parish plans to participate in a program that would raise that figure to 80 percent, Grimmer said.

Grimmer echoed Gabel’s comments that the jail situation is the big problem with this year’s budget.

Expenses related to the jail and the continuing expense of housing prisoners in jails outside the parish make up the biggest part of the change in the 2008 budget.

The parish officials had hoped to open a new parish jail in March. That would have cut out the expense of paying other parishes to hold Livingston Parish inmates.

Shortly after the parish accepted the new jail as substantially complete, a spring storm raced through the parish, damaging the roof and some interior parts of the building.

Hurricane Gustav followed on Sept. 1, and the new jail had to be used to house hundreds of outside law enforcement, military and emergency workers who came to the area to provide help in subsequent weeks, Warden Jim Brown said.

Officials also found a problem with the floor, which is being replaced, he said.

All of those things slowed putting in furniture and computers and installing the jail-management software, the warden said.