Police jury doubles jail rapair budget due to state mandate

The Evangeline Parish Police Jury, during a special meeting on Monday, December 16, voted to double the amount budgeted for repairs to the parish jail that are mandated by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
The police jury had budgeted $20,000 for repairs but amended the 2014 budget to include $40,000 for repairs of toilets, showers and lighting.
The police jury also asked DHH for a 90-day extension on the deadline for making the repairs, which expired the same day as the special meeting.
The jurors approved the amended 2014 budget and an amended 2013 budget during the meeting.
The jury also approved of bids for limestone, fuel, various types of culverts, grader blades, cold mix used to patch roads and other items.
Another issue on the agenda was a claim for damages of a tomb at St. Ann’s Old Cemetery in Mamou. Donald Bergeron, police jury secretary/treasurer, said the person who brought the claim apparently assumed the person hired by the parish to cut the grass in the cemetery had caused the damage with a tractor.
However, the police jury denied the claim after Bergeron, who examined the damaged tomb, said a tractor is not used to cut the grass, and the mower used to cut the grass in the cemetery was not large enough to have caused the damage.
Also, the tomb is near a road, Bergeron said, so a vehicle could have caused the damage. “There’s no way to prove,” how the tomb was damaged, he said.