łÒ°ż±·ŽÜŽĄłą·Ął§Ìęâ District Attorney Ricky Babin is seeking a 46 percent budget increase from Ascension Parish government in 2019, saying it's needed because of rising health insurance costs and declining revenue from fines and fees.
Babin, whose three-parish 23rd Judicial District includes Ascension Parish, made his case Tuesday to Parish Council members for an additional $370,500 for his office of 70 employees and around 20 assistant district attorneys. Â
"As you know, we cannot sustain ourselves strictly on what we raise through fines, fees, forfeitures, etc.," Babin said. "As the law is moving in the direction of 'you can't put people in jail for not paying fines,'" Babin added, a lot fines are not getting paid, and the loss of income is "also affecting us."
Questioned by council members, Babin also acknowledged that the advent of the Uber and Lyft driving services have cut down on driving while intoxicated cases, further reducing his revenues.
Babin, however, added that fewer DWIs is a good thing, even though it might be bad for his budget.   Â
Babin's office draws its funding from all three parish governments in his judicial district â Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes as his primary sources of revenue. He has no tax of his own and otherwise relies on fees and fines generated by his office.
Ascension, which operates on a calendar-year budget, is the middle of its review of a proposed $210 million spending plan in 2019. The overall budget represents an 83 percent increase from what parish officials expect to spend through 2018, though most of the increase is in capital projects funded with grants, dedicated surplus dollars and long-term debt.
Babin appeared before the council's finance committee on Tuesday to request the additional funding, which the committee is recommending be approved. The final vote on the full budget isn't expected until mid-November.
The increase, which was already in the administration's proposed budget, would boost Ascension's contribution from $808,500 in 2018 to $1.18 million in 2019.Â
Babin told council members his office handles about half the felony cases of East Baton Rouge Parish â 2,000 to 3,000 per year â but receives about one-third of the funding that goes to the District Attorney's Office in the neighboring parish.Â
Babin's office has a total budget of about $4.7 million. According to comparison figures tallied by Babin, the East Baton Parish Rouge Parish district attorney has a budget of about $12 million. The city-parish kicked in about $4 million this year, according to figures Babin presented to the council.  Â
Livingston Parish, which has a population similar in size to Ascension, provided about $978,000 to its district attorney, Babin's figures show.Â
Babin said he doesn't come before the council to ask for increases annually and maybe should do so more often to avoid large single-year requests every few years.
But he said he has been dipping, in recent years, into surplus dollars at about $200,000 annually to cover rising insurance and other costs and now has about $750,000 left in reserve.
Parish budget officials said last week that the administration is planning a "very aggressive" 2019 capital spending plan totaling $110 million on roads, drainage infrastructure, a new courthouse, new fire stations, new sewer systems and other upgrades.
Each year, however, the parish also routinely over-budgets more capital spending than it can actually accomplish. In 2019, the budgeted spending is almost quadruple the capital spending expected to be finished through 2018 at $30.6 million.Â
On the operational side of the budget, which includes the District Attorney's Office, the parish plans to spend $99.7 million in 2019, about $7 million more than in 2018.