Larry Sorapuru Jr. has been attending recent library board meetings.

According to the St. John the Baptist Parish Councilman at Large, the last library board meeting he attended included talk of the local library system’s recent audit.

He said discussion was considered on placing $10 to $12 million into a CD (certificate of deposit).

“That tells me they were looking for some long-range savings,” Sorapuru said. “So my antennas went up right away.”

Sorapuru shared the story with his fellow Parish Council members and the public as part of a discussion concerning the library’s dedicated tax revenue and the best use of those funds when it comes to concerns of St. John Parish government.

Local voters approved a 10-year, 9.94 mills tax on April 9, 2016. It took effect this year and is dedicated to the library system.

The hefty tax generates approximately $4 million a year, parish officials said, and the overwhelming consensus among Parish Council members and government administrators is that local libraries don’t need that much money to operate on a yearly basis.

That’s not a feeling shared by the library.

Library Director Trina Smith told Parish Council members Tuesday that she was not prepared to formally speak about the need to maintain the library system’s current funding but felt compelled to as the issue was being debated publicly.

Smith said the money generated by the millage is already “earmarked” to maintain and boost youth education and adult literacy, while some was set for expansion plans.

“Before I came aboard, we had two other directors who weren’t there for very long,” Smith said. “We had a span from 2014 up until 2016, when I arrived, so we’re trying to catch up on a lot of things.

“We don’t want to scale it down to where we are struggling and people don’t have a place to come. Not everybody has a computer. Everybody does not have access to WiFi.”

Smith said three of the four local libraries are closed on Sundays and numerous employee positions “have not been filled for quite some time.”

Any final decision on the dedicated funding is in local voters’ hands.

Parish Council members can only call for a rededication election, which if they did, would most likely take place in Spring 2019.

Local library officials may have more to worry about than their future budget constraints.

Numerous employees who spoke on the record about a negative work environment and misuse of public funds recently contacted L’OBSERVATEUR.

In response, L’OBSERVATEUR is publishing a special report Wednesday (Sept. 5) in which those employees, the library director and numerous Library Board members respond to the allegations.

“It’s an embarrassment,” one employee said. “I have to go out into the community and face the patrons who say, basically, the service sucks. They want to know why no one seems happy and why everyone looks down and out.”

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.