The fifth and final Iberia Parish Council special Finance Committee budget meeting is complete, and the nearly $50 million budget for the parish is ready to go before the council for approval.

Finance Director Kimberly Segura said 39 percent of the parish’s 2009 revenues stem from taxes, 3 percent from licenses, 26 percent from grants, 12 percent from fees, 1 percent from fines and forfeitures, 3 percent from interest in rents and royalties, 2 percent from other sources and 13 percent from transfers between funds.

Last year’s budget was about $42 million, with the $10 million increase this year coming from road bonds that the parish issued last year and will spend this year on road improvements.

Advertisement

The parish is giving a 2.5 percent pay increase to all parish employees for cost of living, coupled with a 2.5 percent merit increase. Segura said some employees may see the full 5 percent increase because of the merit grading system, while others may only see a 1 or 2 percent increase.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the committee approved an increase in travel expenditures for the council from $20,725 to $30,000.

Committee Chairman Jerome Fitch said the budget used to allow $40,000 for travel, and last year the council spent $26,000 on travel to conferences.

Fitch said the $30,000 allotment should cover the expense of each council member being able to attend one national conference and one state conference.

Committee members discussed changing the policy that requires the council to appropriate money each time a member attends a conference, even if the money does not exceed the budgeted amount.

Other parish entities are not required to appropriate travel money each time someone takes a trip.

“We are the only ones who get criticized for going to these things,” Fitch said.

“We appropriate money each year, and then when it’s time for us to travel we have to approve ‘X’ amount of dollars before we go and ‘X’ amount of dollars when we come back.”