City Parish President Joey Durel is proposing a $598 million budget, which is up $17 million from last year.
Some of the highlights include a %2.5 pay increase for LCG employees, something that hasn't happened in more than two years.
The budget also includes some cost-cutting measures, for taxpayers, including phasing out the Departments of Traffic and Transportation and Administrative Services.
Bottom line City-Parish President Joey Durel thinks the parish isn't carrying it's own weight, when it comes to funding city-parish government.
"You know I anguish over that. I think what are we going to do. We cant hire fireman, we can't give the pay-raises, we can't do the things we want to do from an operations standpoint. But as it turns out, we can everything we want to do", says Durel.
In his 10th budget, Durel is looking to fix that
When it comes to operating costs, there's a city-parish split.
Durel proposes taking $6 million from the parish, "Roads, Bridges and the Drainage Taxes", to apply towards operating costs, bills he says the city's been covering.
"They can make us whole. They can pay the debt.The entity that is parish government can pay the debt to the city. Take a project, a drainage project, a coulee, a ditch, kill those project, and put the money into the city budget", Durel.
Some are apprehensive about that proposal, most notably councilmen who represent the areas outside of city limits, like District 9 Councilman William Theriot.
"It's a process, and it's something that we have to do year to year, and that's part of our responsibility to get into the nitty gritty so to speak", says Theriot.
The budget can be viewed here.