City-parish spending up 12%

• By GREG GARLAND
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 5, 2009 - Page: 1B

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Cleanup and recovery costs from hurricanes Gustav and Ike helped drive city-parish government spending up 12.1 percent last year to $659.1 million, an annual financial report shows.

 Mayor-President Kip Holden’s administration said pay raises for police and firefighters and hiring additional personnel for the two public safety agencies contributed to the sharp increase in government spending — from $588 million in 2007 to $659.1 million in 2008.

The financial statement, which was issued last week, shows that  hurricane cleanup and recovery costs accounted for $49.3 million of the increased spending in 2008.

“Take the hurricanes out of it and public safety was everything,” said Mike Futrell, the mayor’s chief administrative officer.

The financial statement for the year ended Dec. 31, 2008, is the latest to show a big increase in spending by city-parish government.

The $659.1 million spent last year is 30 percent above the $506.3 million the city-parish spent in 2006, records show.

Fred Dent, of the anti-tax group Taxbusters, said “that’s an awfully big jump” regardless of the purposes for which the money was needed.

“Government has an appetite for money that’s just enormous,” Dent said.
He said it’s in the nature of government to constantly seek new taxes or to want to raise existing ones.

“They spend everything they have and everything that they don’t have,” Dent said. “The natural tendency is to come back and say we need more money.”

 But Futrell asserted the Holden administration has acted prudently in its handling of the city-parish’s financial affairs and has remained focused on the public’s top priorities.

The city-parish expects federal reimbursements of $40.3 million, which will cover much of the $49.3 million spent last year on hurricane cleanup and recovery, Futrell said.

Other than those expenses, he said, most increases in government spending in 2008 were for public safety purposes.

The city-parish has added 70 police officers and 28 firefighters since 2006, Futrell said, and police officers and firefighters received pay raises.