By Paige Gurgainers
At this month’s regular meeting it was unanimously approved that a public hearing would be held regarding an election to authorize the levy of an ad valorem tax to assist in funding the Webster Parish Council on Aging (COA).
Executive Director of COA for the past four years Johnny Johnson attended the meeting to give the public background on why they were asking for financial support. He said, “Our budget situation has been fine with the Covid money.”
Over the last four years the Covid relief money has provided an average of $90K per year to COA, but according to Johnson that will soon be coming to a halt.
They have already started dipping into their reserves close to the amount of $150K with about $100K remaining.
“With that said, the Covid money goes away this year and we go back to 2020 level funding. If that happens, my projections are a 40 percent cut in services,” said Johnson. “We have no choice because of inflation – cost of food has gone crazy. There just isn’t any other option. We either have to have new revenue or we have to cut services and I don’t know how to cut services, myself, so I would appreciate it if you would go on with this and allow us to take it to the people and allow them to have a say.”
According to Johnson, COA now receives about $380K from the state, $291K from the federal government, $18,750 from the parish and $12K from the city. They also have a program income of approximately $35K with private donations equaling anywhere from $20K to $25K per year.
This totals approximately $750K per year in funding not excluding the pay cut they will be receiving this year following the demising Covid relief funds.
According to Johnson the COA needs $800K to continue functioning and providing the services already available to Webster Parish residents. With the additional funding they plan to also include transportation services for medical appointments in Shreveport, which is currently the most requested.
The public hearing will take place during next month’s scheduled meeting on July 2 at 10:30 a.m. with the election projected for Dec. 7.