The East Baton Rouge Council on Aging is defending its spending of $12,000 earlier this spring to send five employees to Chicago for a continuing education conference.
In a statement released late Wednesday night, the COA listed the employees who went to the five-day conference, which was hosted by the American Society on Aging. It also lists the seminars the employees attended while at the conference, and the number of continuing education hours they earned. The statement also notes that the $12,000 covered the cost of the COA’s annual membership dues to the American Society on Aging.
The statement—prepared by SSA Consultants’ Christel Slaughter, whose high-profile firm is now representing the COA—goes on to defend the COA’s participation at the conference.
“The EBRCOA believes its mission to serve the needs of seniors includes ongoing investment in staff development through relevant continuing education programming,” the statement reads.
The statement was issued in response to a report that aired Tuesday night on WBRZ-TV questioning the price tag of the trip—which was for a non-mandatory conference—and the $70 per diem the five employees each received.
The controversy is just the latest in a growing list surrounding the agency and its management, and it comes as several members of the Metro Council are exploring ways to hold off levying the full 2.25-mill dedicated property tax for the agency that voters narrowly approved last fall.
The COA has been under fire since the tax passed amid allegations, recently substantiated by a Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s report, that the nonprofit engaged in potentially illegal activity by using agency resources to campaign for the tax.
“We’re considering all sorts of options at this point,” says Metro Councilman Dwight Hudson, who has been one of the agency’s harshest critics on the council. “We have to give them something but we don’t have to levy the full amount.”
Parish Attorney Lea Anne Batson confirms that the Metro Council does not have to levy the full 2.25 mills approved by voters. Language in the law allows the council to levy up to 2.25 mills but does not require them to do so.
Metro Councilwoman Barbara Freiberg says she still plans to vote for levying the full tax when it comes before the council in June, but adds she’s on the fence.
“I’m almost ballistic in my concern that someone who is going to have a budget of more than $8 million a year couldn’t manage a $3 million budget,” she says.
But Metro Councilwoman Tara Wicker, who chaired the board of the COA under former Mayor Bobby Simpson, says while the agency clearly has internal management issues, it desperately needs the full millage, which will generate some $8 million a year.
“Not levying the tax would be a mistake,” she says.
—Stephanie Riegel
