Morgan City officials make case for tax to fund public safety pay, training

Morgan City Mayor Lee Dragna is beginning the job of persuading city voters to approve a new sales tax dedicated police and firefighter pay and training.

The proposition, which would enact a 0.5% sales tax in the city, will appear on the April 29 ballot. The tax would raise about $1.3 million a year, according to the ballot language, and would take effect in July.

The tax proposition was developed not just to provide a $3-an-hour raise in base pay and to fund training for police and firefighters, but also to put public safety personnel funding on a sound financial footing for years into the future, Dragna said.

"It’s about doing the right thing,” he said.

The tax election, which the Morgan City Council voted to call with a Jan. 24 resolution, hasn’t generated much debate or criticism. What appears beyond debate is that
Morgan City pays firefighters and police officers much less than many surrounding departments, a cost saving that is proving to be expensive.

At the April 2022 City Council meeting, when Police Chief James F. Blair was nearing retirement, he raised a red flag: The city’s starting pay for police officers was $12.09 per hour, or $4 less than the average for departments from Franklin to Houma.

The low pay contributed to a turnover rate of 40 officers in three years, a rate Blair called “not sustainable.”

Firefighter pay lagged more. The starting pay in the Morgan City Fire Department was $8.36.

State supplemental pay kicks in another $2.90 per hour, but only after the officer or firefighter has been with the department for a year. And personnel in surrounding departments get supplemental pay, too.

The City Council voted last year to raise the starting pay for officers and firefighters by $1 an hour, but there was general agreement that the raise wasn’t enough. Dragna and council members began looking for a funding source.

It wasn’t just the gap in salary that contributed to Morgan City’s public safety problems.

While working on the 2021 budget, Dragna and other administration officials had to dig into city finances to figure out why the public safety budget had a potential hole in it.
What officials discovered was the cost of training officers was eating up city funds, Dragna said.

New police officers must be paid while they’re undergoing training. Insurance, retirement and other human resources add more costs.

Then tack on thousands more for academy training, equipment and the cost of assigning a supervisor to ride with the trainee for two months.
Dragna said the city could face a bill of $60,000 to put a new officer on the street, only to watch many of them move on to higher-paying departments.

“That’s why the budget was so whacked out,” Dragna said.

Personnel shortages may also increase costs because overtime must be paid to officers who fill in scheduling gaps.

The same problems apply to the Fire Department, with an extra obstacle. State rules require two firefighters, a captain and an operator, for each truck. With the department down to 26 line firefighters and four people at the main fire station, illness or vacations can leave the MCFD to short on personnel to staff all the stations.

“I just don’t have the people,” Fire Chief Alvin Cockerham said Monday. “I have a minimum number of people, and when there’s a vacation or illness, I have to shut one [station] down. I don’t have the money to pay overtime. …

“We try to get good people, and we’ve got good people. How they stay here I don’t know.”

For the last year, a station has been closed for a shift 59% percent of the time.

The plans call for a 30% pay increase that, according to Assistant Chief John MacDougall, “would make a big difference in our starting pay and retention.”

“We’re pleading our case,” Cockerham said. “We’re asking people to help us help you.”

When Dragna, council members and city staffers were looking for a funding source, a property tax was among the methods under consideration.

Dragna thinks the sales tax is the best way to go. Property taxes would be paid only by Morgan City property owners, he said. A sales tax spreads the burden to those who
come here from outside the city to shop or eat and benefit indirectly from the public safety protection afforded to city businesses.

The half-cent tax would raise the total sales tax — state, parish and city — charged in Morgan City to 9.7%. Two years ago, a 0.45% sales tax proposed by the St. Mary School Board for teacher and staff pay passed, but not before local political leaders objected loudly about the effect on businesses and the economy. Dragna is counting on the public perception about the importance of public safety.

“I don’t believe we’ll have any opposition,” Dragna said.

Nor does he have any patience for the argument that higher taxes will lead people to leave Morgan City.

“What will drive people away is when the businesses close and leave because of the police protection,” Dragna said.