When it comes to fixing the problematic local water meter system, St. John the Baptist Parish has a plan to get a plan.

That might read as dismissive, but it actually represents something tangible for taxpayers and local customers to hold onto as they wade through problems that are none the making of their own.

St. John residents have long been plagued by inconsistent water metering, leading to dramatically spiked bills and off-schedule billing.

Faulty meters and registers, along with old and rotted pipes, are blamed for the problems, which can only be fixed, we’re told, through the $6 million installation of a new system.

That action is still the better part of a year away and, in the meantime, our elected leaders are doubling down on their improvement plan through a Parish Council-authorized $65,950 contract with Stantec.

The national consulting firm with an office in New Orleans is asked to deliver a comprehensive financial planning and cost-of-service study for the parish’s water and sewerage systems, which fall under the guidance of the St. John Utilities Department and director Blake Fogleman.

The hope is after St. John’s multi-million dollar water meter investment is made, the new infrastructure will come with renewed professionalism within the department, including financial operation that doesn’t drag parish spending down and reasonable billing.

That would be a marked improvement for a department that parish leaders admit does not currently operate up to par. Stantec’s preliminary report should be available by the end of June, with a complete report and recommendations finalized by the end of August.

During passionate discussion on the Stantec contract last week, Councilman Larry Snyder questioned administrators, specifically Fogleman, on why this action couldn’t be accomplished in house.

“Why can’t we do that?” Snyder asked Fogleman. “That was one of the reasons why you came along. When you came aboard, one of the selling points to approve you was you were an engineer and could look at those types of things and help us out in that area. But we are going to bring someone else in here to do just what we hired you to do.”

Fogleman told Council members an accountant’s background was needed to review and make the necessary recommendations for efficient improvement, adding his time is spent overseeing the department’s day-to-day operation. In characterizing his multimillion-dollar yearly operational budget, Fogleman told Council members “you know all the things we need to continue to do, and we cannot do that without financial stability in moving forward. We can’t keep robbing Peter to pay Paul so to speak.”

Fogleman said he was confident Stantec would make recommendations in the first couple of months of 2018 to improve the department and then provide a report that could lead to long-term financial stability.

Not all Council members shared the optimism, with several suggesting commissioned, third-party studies are largely a waste of taxpayers’ money and, in this case, would simply come back with the suggestion to raise customers’ rates to account for the budget shortfall.

Before ultimately voting in favor of the contract, Councilman Lennix Madere Jr. said each parish director has the responsibility to know if he or she has the proper equipment or correct number of employees.

Parish President Natalie Robottom told Council members she remembered many of them attending the utility management training where attendees were instructed that if you are going to run a utility system, “you need to make sure that you are planning for your operation, your maintenance, your capital improvements, which at this point, we are unable to do.”

It is worrisome to hear the concern raised by Council members and the administration’s insistence that this $65,000 study is needed to raise operational standard to a level we should already be at.

However, if we all agree things are bad, there is little point in continuing to argue about how we got there, especially when that delays improvement.

Whether it’s thousands in study or millions in installation, the time is now for concrete improvement. Our elected leaders are banking on positive change; we’ll know in 2018 if they are correct.

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