Members of the parish Charter Review Committee spent about 45 minutes discussing parish council finance issues and, after chairman Stan Beaubouef proclaimed that the committee had, "beat this horse to death," moved on to other matters at their regular meeting Tuesday night at the Bayou Vista Community Center.

Most of the discussion centered around the parish council’s current method of funding non-governmental entities and other small funding requests that often appear without warning, arrive too late for inclusion on the council’s posted agenda and therefore face limited scrutiny or public review. The home rule charter only allows appropriation of money by ordinance, a process that can take three weeks.

Currently, council members often approve last-minute expenditures, usually financed out of three-tenths sales tax money, by resolution and then clean up the process through budget amendments twice annually. That practice violates the home rule charter.

Councilman Glen Hidalgo of Bayou Vista suggested to the committee that perhaps a monetary threshold, like $10,000 or less could be approved by resolution and larger amounts only by ordinance. That brought little sympathy from committee members who pointed out that the treasury could be emptied $9,999 at a time with no public input.

After lengthy discussion the committee felt that the problem was not meritorious of charter inclusion with several members noting that such provisions were not in other charters they reviewed. The final suggestion was for the parish council to follow the charter, which would mean only approving expenditures by ordinance with appropriate time for public input.

A brief discussion was held on council pay and the salary of the parish president and duties,

No details were discussed but the majority of the committee members indicated that some increase in pay, with voter approval, might be warranted after more than 25 years which was the last time pay was set. However committee member James Vidos said he felt public service was "volunteer" work and that pay should not be expected. Beaubouef said he liked Washington Parish’s pay schedule that pays a portion of a councilman’s pay as a salary with the remainder as a per diem meaning they only get paid if they actually attend the meetings.

Limited discussion was held on the president’s position with again no specifics but a general feeling that the current pay might need a small bump but no major changes should be made unless there were major changes in the president’s duties. It was noted that that might prove problematic since the president only has one employee, the chief administrative officer, and all other employees’ boss is the CAO. Issues of two bosses creating unworkable situations were raised.

The committee decided on two more meetings. The first will be held in Franklin at the council meeting room on Sept. 16 to hammer out specifics on proposed charter changes and a final meeting Oct. 21 in Bayou Vista for input on the specifics and vote to refer changes, if any, to the parish council.

So far the committee has identified five areas that may bring recommendations — council compensation, president’s compensation, president’s duties, term limit clarification and non-governmental organization expenditures.

All meetings are at 6 p.m. and open to the public.