Terrebonne Parish Council OKs two for director positions

Most parish department heads are appointed to their positions with little or no controversy, but that was not the case with Earl Eues’ appointment as director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness by the Terrebonne Parish Council at its meeting on Nov. 19.

The meeting saw Houma attorney J. Dana Ortego’s appointment as head of the Risk Management and Human Resources Department sail through.

Eues was also appointed, but over the strong objections of Councilman Alvin Tillman.

The issue was not Eues’ qualifications – council members, including Tillman, praised him – but, rather, the way the director is going to be paid.

The last person to hold the job, Jerrold Richard, was paid a yearly salary of $70,000 before being fired from the position.

Now the parish is hiring the Emergency Preparedness director as an independent contractor, meaning Eues will receive $52 an hour for his services and no annual salary.

The director also will receive no medical benefits, retirement benefits, paid sick and vacation leave, or overtime.

He will have two staff members and still serve at the pleasure of the parish president, who can terminate the contract at any time.

Eues already has full-time jobs as managing partner of the environmental consultants Allterra and as the owner of KEE Environmental Services.

“Our OEP was never functional,” said Councilman Johnny Pizzolatto. “It functioned on a shoestring. It was reactive rather than proactive.”

“My first suggestion to (Parish President Michel) Claudet when I got here was to hire it on a part-time basis,” Pizzolatto said. “They sit in the office waiting for something to happen. We’re monitoring this. Eues is dedicated enough so that the parish will have a good homeland security program.”

“I visualize him coming in two hours a day,” he said.

Councilwoman Teri Cavalier called Eues a natural-born leader.

“I told Michel we need this guy,” Cavalier said. “Michel said he already has a full-time job. I’m glad to get him like this.”

“I felt that the department was not as prepared as it should be,” she added.

Tillman, however, called the hiring of the director as an independent contractor “highly unusual,” saying he was concerned about monitoring the contracts awarded to the office.

Tillman’s main worry was that the director would pile up hours when hurricanes threaten the parish.

“Around hurricane time, this could get out of control,” he said. “You know how much time we spend here. It can easily get up to 70, 80 hours a week.”

Claudet said that would be offset by the times he does not work 40 hours a week. “He doesn’t want a blank check,” Claudet said.

But Tillman felt hiring an outsider would set a bad precedent for other department heads. He said most department heads would reject their yearly salaries in favor of a high hourly wage, even without benefits.

He also had doubts about the director’s availability.

“I would love to see a standard hiring as by code,” he said. “If he’s full time, he needs to be here. What if he takes a week off and we need him?”

“I would love to see Eues in the position, but I don’t want to see the director doing two hours a week, 10 hours a month,” he said. “It’s a full-time position.”

Parish Attorney Courtney Alcock said the parish charter has nothing in it about hiring independent contractors as department heads.

Though the parish did not seek a state attorney general’s opinion, she reviewed attorney general opinions on similar issues and found no problems with contracting out the position.

Tillman wanted to postpone a vote on Eues’ appointment until an attorney general’s opinion was sought, but his proposal failed when no other council person seconded the motion.

Eues told the council his main goal was to develop a more comprehensive response to hurricanes, and to construct a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center that could withstand a Category 5 storm.