Law enforcement officers with the Ville Platte Police Department will now earn $20 an hour to patrol the Ville Platte Housing Authority locations after a board decision was made on Tuesday to increase the hourly wage by five dollars.
The increase in pay was a result of the housing authority making an effort to entice officers to patrol the housing complexes when they are off duty from their job with the police department.
The decision to offer more money was made after the housing authority’s executive director, Grant Soileau, shared that they were having a hard time getting officers to sign up to patrol the multiple housing authority complexes in Ville Platte during their off hours. The reason for the problem, according to Soileau, was because officers “make more working overtime for the city.” According to Soileau, currently, overtime pay for VPPD officers is $22 an hour.
At the March 27, 2018 meeting, the board’s vice chairman, David Ortego, suggested that the pay be increased to $20. Ortego also suggested that the board’s contract with the city should state that the housing authority will be allowed to readdress the hourly pay at anytime.
The board asked that Soileau give them an update at their next meeting as to whether the increase in pay has made a difference in officers patrolling the housing authority. If officers are still not signing up to patrol the designated areas, the board is prepared to discuss increasing the pay some more.
The board also spent time at their recent meeting receiving an update on the water increase that was first discussed at their meeting in December.
At the December 2017 meeting, Ortego, during his financial report, shared that the housing authority paid a total of $41,788.73 for water. This amount was $18,493.59 more than what had been spent on water for the same period the year before.
During the March meeting, the board clarified that there was a $9,000 posting error on the part of the housing authorities accountant. Once the error was corrected, the increase in water payments dropped to just under $10,000.00.
Soileau shared that the increase could have been a result of running toilets and sinks.
“We inspected 127 units and there were 30 with deficiencies either with a toilet or sink,” said Soileau. “One of the units had a toilet that had been running for two months.”
Soileau also explained that another issue that could be contributing to the water increase involves people coming to the housing authority to fill up buckets of water to bring back to their homes. The executive director then shared that some tenant also wash clothes for other people who are not tenants, which he said may also be contributing to the increase.
The last major item discussed at the meeting involved an announcement from Soileau that rent for tenants would be “going back to 30 percent fair market rent instead of 80 percent.”
In the past, tenants paid 30 pct. of their rent at the housing authority, until HUDD changed it to 80 pct. last year. This change back to 30 pct. of fair market rent will allow for a decrease in what a tenant pays in rent.
Soileau said, “Once we have the correct paperwork, we do not have to have approval from HUDD. All we will need is a board resolution to go back to 30 pct.”
Soileau finished off this discussion by sharing that the housing authority is hoping to have all of the necessary paperwork completed to for this change to take place in mid to late June 2018.
Image
By: ELIZABETH WEST Managing Editor