Shreveport City Councilman Dr. Alan Jackson Joins AGR Discussing 'Pay-gate'

On Wednesday, Dr. Alan Jackson joined Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone in the American Ground Radio studio for an interview regarding the ‘Pay-gate’ scandal and Chairman James Green’s responsibility for it.

Jackson noted that while he believes the City Charter “is very quiet, but it did not say it could not happen,” and that an unofficial practice existed wherein the Chair would “go around asking city council members, do you have a problem with this?” outside of a meeting before taking action on council staff pay increases, “He did not,” consult them according to that practice. Check out the full interview:

Louis R. Avallone: I mean, and trust is the cornerstone of any government's relationship Yeah. With its citizens, right? I mean, even the most well-intentioned policies can be met with skepticism if it's not presented, if it's not communicated effectively if people don't trust you!

Stephen Parr: Or, or if it's a bad plan, people aren't gonna trust that that either. But that is very important. And by the way, that's something that goes across party lines. It, it's not just, you know, people say, oh, we don't, we don't trust Democrats in office. People don't trust Republicans in office either. This is, this is across party lines. It's about government will, will government do what government says it's going to do. This is part of why bonds fail a lot, is because people go to the polls and they see there's a bond, and they're like, you know what? I don't think you've done a good job of running the city so far. Why should I give you extra money?

Louis R. Avallone: I think it's sometimes when you do see a very well thought out plan from government. There's a lot of skepticism. A lot of people question it. They, they close their minds to the idea that this may in fact be good. It, it kind of goes back to what Zig Ziglar once said. People don't care what you know until they know you care.

Stephen Parr: Actually, that was Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt.

Louis R. Avallone: Well, you know what, it's Zig, it's Zig Ziglar to me.

Stephen Parr: Zig Ziglar quoting Teddy Roosevelt, but it was Teddy Roosevelt and he said, the people don't care what you know until they know how much you care.

Louis R. Avallone: And, and that's part until people trust you. Yeah. I mean, and that, that's the foundation of it all.

Stephen Parr: So this is why we've invited, uh, Dr. Allen Jackson to join us here in Studio City Council member, thank you so much for spending some time with us here in American Ground Radio.

Dr. Alan Jackson: Thank you for having me.

Stephen Parr: Okay. So, um, this, this pay deal is one of those things where people go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You guys are the ones who are supposed to know the city charter inside and out. We aren't supposed to know the city charter inside and out. The City Charter says you can't do it. It happened anyway. Why should I trust you when you guys don't even know what the city charter says?

Dr. Alan Jackson: So, and, and, and that's what we have to be clear and transparent. The city, the city charter actually is not clear. Um, if you think about the opinion that, um, the city attorney rendered, he came back and said, we need to clarify. We need to clear up. Um, many people have said we need a charter review. Um, the charter is very old school, is very quiet, but it did not say it could not happen. So we have the city charter, and we also have what we call ordinance, our ordinance or our laws. So in our ordinance, we have a, a line that says that city council MAY fix salaries. That word may is used and not shall. And I'm always talking about the Bible may versus shall. That may gives us a, a little bigger wiggle room that says, if they may do it, then who's responsible for it?

So there's a lot of different language where anybody can interpret the city charter is what we always call our Bible. And as you know, many people read the Bible and can interpret the Bible differently. Um, that's why we have lawyers, lawyers can read the same law and then they can argue different points of the law. So that's the problem that we're having with our, with our, with our charter. I, I believe our chairman in his heart, without speaking to him, believed that he was operating under his authority and his power based on what was done previously.

What I can tell you is we have no documentation that a city council raise has ever been brought to a vote. That would've been documented. That would've been factual. There is no documentation. You won't find that. So at least we can say it has never been brought to a council vote. But we can also say that city council has been giving a raise without being a city-mandated raise. So the question is, how do they get a raise if it has never been brought to official vote?

Louis R. Avallone: Well, the city Wait, wait, Attorney, go ahead.

Stephen Parr: I have a quick question on that. You're saying that no one has ever received a raise from the city council? 'cause you guys just voted …

Dr. Alan Jackson: No, no, no, no. I'm saying they have received a raise, but no city council has ever voted on that particular raise.

Stephen Parr: Are you talking about this raise that, that, that, uh, chairman Green said he authorized? Or are you talking about the 13% raise that you guys voted for last year?

Dr. Alan Jackson: Great. I'm glad you're saying that. 'cause I want to be completely clear. I'm not talking about the 13% raise. I'm talking about when city council staff members received raise on their own. Not their entire city. When council staff receive raise, they have received raises before, not inclusive of the 13% raise.

Louis R. Avallone: Well, according to the charter, the city council as a body would be voting on those raises.

Dr. Alan Jackson: But it has never happened.

Louis R. Avallone: You mean the, the city coun, you're saying that you researched…

Dr. Alan Jackson: City council has never voted on raises for city council themselves,

Stephen Parr: For individuals city council, for employee, employees…

Dr. Alan Jackson: For individual city council. So what the practice is, which again makes it confusing, has not been documented what the practice is. The chairman will go around asking city council members, do you have a problem with this? Do you have a problem with this? Is it okay with this? And then that chairman would actually file the paperwork, sign it, and then those individuals would get raised. That has been the practice, but there's never been a formalized vote. And there goes the confusion.

Stephen Parr: Did Chairman Green go around and ask people on the city council, are you okay with this? Does this, does this work? You're saying that's what previous chairs did? Did he do that? In this case?

Dr. Alan Jackson: He Did not.

Stephen Parr: Okay.

Louis R. Avallone: Okay. But the city attorney, uh, Marcus Edwards in his, in his letter, correct. He says that the authority to set salaries of city council employees is vested in the full city council.

Dr. Alan Jackson: And what did he reference?

Louis R. Avallone: He referenced, uh, he, he didn't reference, uh, he did not cite any section of the charter here, other than this was his conclusion from reading. And he's, and he does reference certain sections of the charter later on in his letter. Uh, but in terms of your request, by the way, it was Councilman Jackson that requested the City Attorney. Issue an opinion. Okay. And in his letter to Councilman Jackson, he says, you requested a city attorney's opinion re concerning whether the city council chair has the authority to issue pay increases to city council employees. No. The authority to set the salaries of City Council employees is vested in the, in the full city council.

Dr. Alan Jackson: So he was clear in his decision upfront and outta respect for the city attorney. That's why I asked him, because at the end of the day, we can ask nine other attorneys and they can read the same thing and come up with a different interpretation. But because he's the city attorney, I ultimately respect his opinion as to how the charter is governed. And so I will stand by his decision. Now, um, I'm also saying for transparency, because this goes back to trust, as you mentioned before, and mindset, the, the, my question is, was Chairman Green trying to get pull one over on the city of Shreveport? In that retrospect? I'm clear and I'm honestly saying absolutely not. I truly believe that the Charter said he's the supervisor of a council based on that language, he thought he had the power to give these raises without coming the city council.

He also knew that this has never, ever came a to a formalized vote. It's not documented. Um, the city attorney could not find any evidence that City Council has voted on raise for individuals before. I gotcha. Now, the practice, that's up for discussion, but the goal is to make sure that number one, we have identified what are the supervisor responsibility for a chair, not just this chair, but any chair. What type of chair do we want? Do we want a strong chair? Do we want an okay chair? Do we want a weak chair? When it comes to other decisions, you think about what City Council is really designed to do. Our job is to set the budget. Our council office has a travel budget. They have a supply budget. When it comes to maybe ordering new copy machine, does that need to come back to council for full vote?

Louis R. Avallone: Excuse me. Let me, let me ask you. We're running outta time. When did you find out that the, these city council clerks had received these pay raises?

Dr. Alan Jackson: I received a call from Councilman Bowman, um, asking me if I knew that council staff had got a raise, and I said, no. I said, this is my first time hearing of it. I said, uh,

Stephen Parr: Was that on Friday?

Louis R. Avallone: It was within the last couple of weeks.

Dr. Alan Jackson: Yeah, it was the last couple of days. I can't remember the exact day, but I said, let me do some phone calls. So, uh, I called some other council members to see if they knew and, and me calling was the first time they heard of it. So they hadn't even heard from Councilwoman Bowman. But through those conversations, we did realize that this was something Chairman Green did on his own. Um, to my knowledge, the individuals wasn't even aware that they were getting a raise until they actually showed up on their, on their, on their pay stubs. So, so this is something that he did not consult. That's one last thing that has not been said. So I'm going to kind of give y'all this, this, we, we got seven seconds. This, this exclusive. So this, most people don't realize…

::Commercial Break::

So a lot of people forgot we lost an employee at the council level, so that salary is one of the reasons why that money was still budgeted for salaries. So when you think about city council, our job is to budget as a whole. But once we put money in the line item it don’t have to come back to city council to ask how that money is spent. So we had money left in salaries because we didn’t re-hire somebody. We wanted to do a better job with the citizens’ money, so as opposed to re-hire, the ladies there took on extra duties, extra work. And so with that being said, Chairman Green didn’t think he did anything wrong. He saw a way to give them a raise, because they were doing more work and like I said previously it has never came to a full, official council vote so he thought he had the power to do so as their immediate supervisor.

Louis R. Avallone: Would you have preferred that he have contacted you before giving those raises or are you okay with what he did?

Dr. Alan Jackson: I would honestly, selfishly say I would’ve preferred. But also I want to say this though for the record. When I vote for a chair, I’m also giving that person some authority to make tough decisions, that’s why we vote for a chair. It’s not different than why we vote for a Mayor. Once we vote for a Mayor we can’t keep putting our hands in the cookie jar and say, ‘Oh, why did you make that decision, why did you make that decision.’ At some point we have to take the hands off the wheel and say ‘I’m going to allow you to be the best chair, be the best mayor that you can.

LISTEN: