Cameron Parish tables proposal to remove personnel details from ordinances, asks for more review

The Cameron Parish Police Jury opened a public hearing on proposed changes to parish ordinances that would remove detailed personnel-policy language from the code and instead refer the public to a separate, board-adopted personnel policy. Staff said an employment law firm had redlined the roughly 50–60 page personnel policy to ensure consistency with current state and federal law and that the only substantive operational change being proposed was a shift in office hours to 7:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.

Jurors and others pressed for clarity on what would change in practice. One juror asked whether employees had received the updated policy; staff said employees had not yet signed acknowledgements but that day-to-day operations would remain unchanged and that the proposed change was intended to streamline future updates by using resolutions rather than repeatedly amending ordinances. Several jurors expressed concern that deleting detailed personnel provisions from the ordinance could reduce transparency for members of the public who look for the rules inside the code.

Following discussion and after a member rescinded a motion to adopt, the Police Jury voted to table the ordinance changes until the next meeting and asked staff to re-email the redline personnel policy. Jurors were asked to send questions to staff so the employment-lawyer who prepared the redline could respond before the next session. No ordinance change was adopted at this meeting.