By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

VACHERIE – St. James Parish volunteer firefighters raised questions to the parish council at Wednesday’s meeting over the creation of a fire service coordinator position.

Spokesmen for two of the parish’s six volunteer fire departments told the council the new position would take away from funding they need from the parish’s proposed 2012 budget. The remarks came during a public hearing on the parish’s $64 million 2012 proposed budget at Wednesday’s meeting in Vacherie. During the introduction of the proposed budget at a previous meeting, Parish President Dale Hymel said the budget includes $136,200 for the fire service coordinator, who would oversee the six volunteer departments in St. James. The position comes with a salary of $56,700.

Previous years’ budgets allocated $144,000 to each of the parish’s volunteer fire departments and some fire chiefs fear the new office would “hurt their leadership.” Fire chiefs from Paulina-Grand Point-Belmont and South Vacherie spoke to the parish council Wednesday and asked for them to consider removing the fire service coordinator from the budget so the fire departments can get their full allocation of funding. The chiefs also asked for the council to delay a vote on the budget until the firefighters could meet to discuss the issue.

The council is scheduled to have another public hearing on the proposed budget at the next council meeting, scheduled for Dec. 7 in Convent. There is also a special budget meeting Monday at 6 p.m. at the Lutcher Senior Center.

In other action, the council approved an amendment to the 2011 fiscal year budget that increased revenue and decreased expenditures for the year. The original budget called for $46.8 million in revenue and $53.6 million in expenditures. With the revisions, revenue increased $3.8 million to $50.5 million, and expenditures declined $881,800 to $52.7 million. The budget year ends Dec. 31.