• By JACQUELINE COCHRAN
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Dec 16, 2009 - Page: 4B

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AMITE — The Tangipahoa Parish Council learned that government employees will not receive pay raises in 2010, as the council approved its budget Monday night.

“We are fortunate that we don’t have to have layoffs,” Jeff McNeely, assistant director of finance, told the Parish Council on Monday night.

The 2010 budget reflects a 10 percent decrease in administrative costs, necessitated by a reduction in sale tax revenues, McKneely explained.

“Revenues are back to pre-Katrina numbers,” he said.

Annual cost-of-living pay increases were not given out this year either. According to statements made previously by Parish President Gordon Burgess, cost-of-living increases given to employees normally range from 3.5 to 4 percent.

The council approved $100,000 in the 2009 budget for cost-of-living salary increases for District Attorney’s Office employees only, as they were left out of 2007 raises and needed to be caught up.

Approved Monday were operating and capital outlay budgets.

Included in the capital outlay budget was $5.1 million for parish road work and maintenance, representing a portion of the $18 million budgeted for expenditures within the next five years.

“We did not give a dollar amount for each road,” Burgess stated in a letter to the council. “The average cost of soil, cement and two-inch overlay is about $125,000 to $150,000 per mile.”

McKneely said Monday that the 2010 budget anticipates no deficit.

In addition, the council approved the 2010 operating budget for the Tangipahoa library system. Within that budget, $4 million is included for a new Amite library branch and administrative offices.