By T. Scott Boatright
During Tuesday’s October meeting, the Lincoln Parish Police Jury decided on budget requests for the 2026 fiscal year while also voting to move forward with a proposal for Emergency Medical Services long-range planning.
Last month, along with requests from returning entities that received funding from the LPPJ in 2025, the Lincoln Parish Museum and the Chief Public Defenders Office both requested funding for the upcoming year — the first such requests from either.
Lincoln Parish Museum and Historical Society director Rick Godley requested $15,000 along with additional funding to renovate or replace two historical marker signs for $3,800 while Chief Public Defender Rick Candler requested $15,000 per month to keep his office running.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the LPPJ discussed and then ended up tabling both of those requests.
The request to table those two matters for now came as a suggestion from Parish Treasurer Michael Sutton.
“Here’s my take — this is just my recommendation from a standpoint of looking at the finances,” Sutton said while the Lincoln Parish Museum request was being discussed. “We had two new requests last month that we really haven’t had too much time to consider. From my standpoint, and I’m not saying that I don’t want to assist with either one of them, but I do think we need to restrategize how we can help these agencies when they ask.
“I will say historically the parish has contributed going all the way back to the centennial, I believe in purchasing and maintaining the signs, so I do think that would be a good initiative even if that seems like a lot. But there’s a means to the end there in comparison to the $15,000 that (Godley) wants for his operation. I really don’t see why he couldn’t come back next year and ask for something else or ask for more assistance for what he’s doing at the museum, but by all means I think the signs should be considered based on what we’ve done historically.”
As far as those signs, Sutton recommended looking at potentially funding one or possibly both signs that need to be replaced.
“Y’all can split it up and do one now and one later, and you can do both,” Sutton said. “At the very least that is us contributing to the historical aspect of Lincoln Parish, keeping in mind what our mission has been in the past with those signs.”
Sutton said tabling a decision about the signs shouldn’t pose a problem if funding does end up being approved at a later LPPJ meeting.
“We’re presenting the budget next month and adopting it in December,” Sutton said. “So, when it comes to the signs, it’s not like we can’t add that to the budget (going into next month’s introduction) anyway. So, there’s still time to discuss that.”
And so it was decided to table the Lincoln Parish Museum at least for now.
As far as the request from the Public Defender’s Office, Sutton said that to the point of what the parish is already contributing to the Third Judicial District Court and Lincoln Parish District Attorney’s Office, and to additional funding requested by Judge Monique Clement to provide video for virtual hearings in a second parish courtroom, a request approved by the LPPJ, that he doesn’t believe at this point the Police Jury has enough information about Candler’s request to make an informed decision on the matter.
Neither Godley or Candler attended Tuesday’s meeting.
“Being that we are contributing to the court system as a whole, it is our recommendation that we just hold off on that for the time being on (Candler’s) request,” Sutton said.
Approved during the meeting were the following budget requests:
- Bayou D’Arbonne Commission, $1.800 (no change from 2025)
- Sparta Groundwater Commission, $2,500 (no change)
- Council on Aging, $5,000 (no change)
- Lincoln Total Community Action, $2,000 (no change)
- LSU Cooperative Extension Service. $27,500 ( a $5,000 over $22,500 approved for 2025)
- Lincoln Parish IT Office (no change)
- Lincoln Parish GIS Office, $2,500 (no change)
- Registrar of Voters, $58,800 (a $3,500 state mandated increase over $53,500 approved for 2025)
- Lincoln Parish Coroner’s Office, $68,000 (no change)
- Third Judicial District Court, ($152,000 same as last year including a 2 1/2% parish employee wage increase)
- Lincoln Parish District Attorney, $300,000 (no change)
- Northeast Delta Human Services Authority, $5,000 (no change)
- Keep Lincoln Parish Beautiful, $7,500 (no change)
- Lincoln Parish Health Unit $33,200 (a mandated increased up from $18,500 in 2025 for payment of the new building
As far as the EMS Long-Range Planning discussion, the LPPJ compared bids of $53,329 from ESCI and $76,840 from Triton, LCC to conduct a study toward those means.
The LPPJ approved the ESCI bid to conduct that study because it was decided that ESCI had what was called a better grasp of what is needed for a parish EMS system with a bid that included more specifics than the Triton bid while also coming in at a significantly lower cost.
Public Safety and Emergency Services Committee member Dan Lord said that David Wells, EMS Director with the Ruston Fire Department, was on board with ESCI doing the study that affects both the RFD, which currently provides emergency and rescue services for the parish as well as the Lincoln Parish Fire Department.
