By GEOFFREY STOUTE

MORGAN CITY — The St. Mary Parish 911 Communications District introduced its 2012 spending plan to board members during Wednesday’s meeting but tabled adoption until December at the request of board Chairman Mark Fryou, who was absent from Wednesday’s meeting along with two other board members.

The budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which will begin Jan. 1 and ends Dec. 31, 2012, includes total projected revenues of $661,706, up from the 2011 projected end of year total of $653,631.

On the expenditure side, total costs are expected at $632,751 in 2012, up from the projected ending year balance of $624,003 this year.

Despite increases in revenues and expenditures, the board expects its profit in 2012 to slip slightly from the projected end-of-year balance of $32,227 this year to $28,954 in 2012.

Specifically, the majority of the board’s income is generated from franchise taxes, which are expected to end 2011 with $651,314 and end 2012 with a balance of $660,251.

The bulk of these monies come from cellular taxes ($361,728 in 2011 and $362,239 in 2012), while the Communication District tax also adds a substantial amount of the total franchise tax ($234,612 this year and $242,772 in 2012).

The district’s other revenues come from interest income.

In the expenditure ledger, payroll and benefits are expected to finish the year at $472,936 for this year and equal $474,068 in 2012.

Of this amount, much of this figure — $329,482 this year and $325,608 next year — is expected to come from salaries and wages, while overtime wages are expected to increase from a projected year-end balance of $2,974 in 2011 to $3,876 in 2012.

The other high-dollar items are the parochial retirement system, which is projected to cost the district $46,568 through the end of this year and $43,078 next year, while the district’s insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana has increased premiums by 18 percent in 2012 from $581 to $688 per person. That means that total health insurance premiums are expected to increase from $74,359 at the end of this year to $82,663 at the end of 2012.

In another insurance the board’s Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corp. plan, total premiums are projected to increase from $1,808 for this year to $2,450 in 2012.

Communications District Director Charlette Angeron also noted that telephone lines/maintenance fees have been increasing gradually, and are expected to continue to rise. Projected end of year expenditures for this year total $71,980 while those for next year are pegged at $76,269.

In other financial matters, the board approved its expense statements for October, which included revenues of $66,515 and expenditures of $42,092 for a net income of $24,422.

Also during Wednesday’s meeting, members learned from Angeron that two supervisors will be attending a supervisor’s seminar in Lafayette at the end of this month, and three dispatchers will be attending a crisis negotiation class at Louisiana State Police headquarters in Baton Rouge.

“Our goal this year is to make sure that at least one time a year … every call taker can attend some type of conference, seminar or workshop, and they bring back what they learn in the workshops and share it with everyone else,” Angeron said.

Angeron also told board members that St. Mary Parish Fire Protection District 11, which serves the Four Corners area, anticipates being on its own radio frequency by the end of next week.

Absent from Wednesday’s meeting were Fryou and board members Gerald Minor and Duval Arthur Jr.