Since Monday’s public hearing and the Ville Platte City Council meeting, there has been confusion on the rate increase percentage for commercial use.
John Mayeaux, bond attorney who drew up the ordinance, clarified the commercial rates across the board, are going up about 47% total. Like Mayor Jennifer Vidrine, Mayeaux stressed the increased percentages for residential and commercial are for rates, not for bills. Citizens and business owners will be charged more for the amount they use, which will affect their bills, but they are not adding these percentages to the bills; less utilities used, the lower the bill will be, and vice versa.
When asked about the rates increasing by 2.2% each year, starting June 1, 2021, Mayeaux said these small increases are meant to adjust for inflation and maintain the system. He added, “This is meant to prevent getting us into the same situation we are now.”
Mayeaux then answered some questions Evangeline Chamber of Commerce Director Renee Brown asked at the public hearing. Brown asked if the reductions to five rates from the previous 28 improved the bottom line. She also asked if money generated through utilities also goes into the general fund and other services and questioned as to where and how the funds will be dispersed. Brown also asked how these services will impact the city.
Mayeaux responded, “The consolidation of rate classes down to five is being done to standardize and to eliminate any preferential treatment for individual customers. The overall expected result of the rate increases and rate class consolidation is approximately 40% increase in total utility revenue. That should total about $1.5 million upon full implementation. Overall this gets the city back to near where rates would have been if the city had done annual rate increases over the past 15-20 years. Around $400,000 of that is needed for additional debt service on the final phase of the water bonds. There are other future improvements that need to be made to the utility system for deferred maintenance.” Mayeaux added, “The general fund budget for fiscal year 2020 was introduced at a previous meeting. It conservatively includes 11 months of increased revenue totaling approximately $568,000.”
Councilman Mike Perron was asked if he could clarify some of the questions asked at the public hearing and council meeting. With regards to Brown’s question about giving the businesses a break on the rate increases, Perron said in the original ordinance proposal, the businesses were going to be paying around 25% more than what the final outcome was. He said they did cut the businesses a break in that regard. When asked about the suggestions to cut salaries or donate council raises to help ease the deficit burden, Perron said, “We did make some cuts, especially on the street department. As far as salaries, I’m not going to cut my salary. First of all, they say that we gave ourselves a raise. We didn’t give ourselves a raise. When I started thirteen years ago, I didn’t even ask for my salary until the day after I was elected. They gave me two salary checks for the month, and at the end of the month, they gave me another check for an auto allowance. They had been doing that for years. About three years ago, the auditor said we had to put the auto check in with a salary check. We put it on the W2 forms. So, someone goes digging and looks at it and says, ‘I thought you were getting X amount of dollars for your salary, now you’re getting this, so you gave yourselves a raise.’ We didn’t. The auditor just combined the auto expense. I did get a raise twice in the thirteen years I’ve been a councilman. One raise was $100 three or four years ago, and the other raise was $100 during Bill Jeanmard’s administration.”
Brown suggested raising taxes instead of utility rates, since taxes haven’t been raised in twenty years. Perron said, “In Bill Jeanmard’s administration, when I was a rookie, the streets were flooded, so we said we need to get together to pass a tax to repair these 70-90 year old lines. No one else wanted to do it. They didn’t have the gall to do it because they knew it was not a popular thing, so they just let it go. We were losing three million gallons a day or more. At the same time, we had people complaining we couldn’t keep any police officers, we didn’t have enough good people working, etc. So Bill suggested we get together and add a little bit more to that tax so we can give all employees a raise. Well then the world blew up. They went nuts. They turned that thing down, so it didn’t go at all. A few weeks later, business people and citizens approached me and said if we passed that tax again just to fix the water lines, we would have voted for it. But we still have the same labor rate for employees. We’re still floating right there. We can’t give them raises as much as we want because we don’t have enough income coming in because we didn’t raise the rates on the utilities which should have been done a long time ago. Plus, when I was growing up we had around 12,000-14,000 people in the city. We now have around 7,000. We have over 400 houses that have no tax value to them, so we’re hurting right there. We don’t raise our revenues, so we’re just floating. Right now, the government is on us, saying we have to repair our sewer system or we’ll get fined $50,000 per day. Ronnie Landreneau (city engineer) had to beg for more time.”
In response to Brown’s question about passing a tax, Perron said they did not have time for that, because fixing the sewer system required immediate action. Perron said there is just one phase left when it comes to replacing water lines. “People are asking us why we didn’t finish it. Well, when the contractors came they told us there is no map, they’re guessing where they’re going, and if they break anything we’re responsible. And they’d break them, and it was like a cancer. Before we can finish the last phase we need more money. But we put that on hold for now. We’re not going to finish until we’ve caught up. The water lines are good now, but we need to do Main Street and LaSalle Street water lines and service everything.”
July 21, 2026
