Kenny Matassa, cleared of wrongdoing, picks up extra $42K on his way out of office – The Advocate

GONZALES Former Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa pocketed more than $190,230 in gross salary during his last year in office, parish payroll records show, far surpassing what he and his predecessors had previously made or what the new president is expected to earn this year.

Boosted by a large onetime check for back pay in his final weeks as president, Matassa's total pay before taxes and deductions in 2019 was about $42,230 greater than the $148,000 that he earned annually in his prior three years in office or what his predecessor, former President Tommy Martinez, had earned each year since 2013.

At the time that Matassa began receiving the extra pay, in late October, he was still trying to find a way to pay more than $230,000 in legal bills after his bribery indictment and trial. He wasn't finding success then through the parish's insurer or council members, though the council would end up covering it in full in December.

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Current and former officials say the extra payday for Matassa may have been an unanticipated outcome of an amendment to the parish pay plan that the Parish Council adopted in August 2018 but was not applied to Matassa's pay until this past fall. The plan lays out the job titles and sets the pay ranges of all parish employees.

In a written response Monday,the administration of new President Clint Cointment said the president and Council Chair Teri Casso "were recently made aware of this," had opened a full investigation into what happened and will adopt new policies to prevent something similar from happening again.

"If it is found that any money was paid out improperly, the Parish will pursue all legal options to recover misappropriated funds," the administration said in the statement Monday. "The Administration and Council are working hard to build trust in government. They are disappointed this happened and are taking all necessary action to open Parish Government to full transparency."

Through a public records request, The Advocate obtained the payroll records and check stubs showing Matassa's raise and back pay.

GONZALES Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa has been unable to convince enough members of the Parish Council to pay more than $200,000

Combined with then-separate salary supplements for the parish president, the change to the pay plan boosted Matassa's annual pay by 18.6%, from $148,000 to $175,456 per year in the final two months of his term, parish payroll records and check stubs show.

The increase also was applied retroactively to Aug. 30, 2018, the date the pay plan amendment took effect, so Matassa also received a onetime payout of$30,228.23 last fall for 14 months of back pay, adding to his earnings in 2019.

GONZALES Ascension Parish government is "well within its authority" to pay the legal defense fees of Parish President Kenny Matassa followin

In addition to the immediate cash, the retroactive check also helped boost almost the last year and a half of salary for Matassa, potentially increasing his lifetime retirement payments. As a parish employee, Matassa is a part of theParochial Employees' Retirement System of Louisiana, the retirement system for parish government employees statewide.

If the employee under the retirement system was hired before Jan. 1, 2007, as Matassa was, the system uses the average of the highest three years of an employee's salary to calculate the retirement benefit. Matassa had worked in parish government for more than 26 years through the end of his term, according to his press statements.

Raise for Matassa? 'Hell, no'

The parish pay plan amendment that enabled the increase for Matassa was adopted during the same committee and council meetings in July and August of 2018 when the council was also discussing a separate item to increase the pay of the future parish president who would take office in January 2020.

Matassa administration officials or council members did not raise the idea that adoption of the pay plan would result in an immediate pay increase for the sitting parish president, then just a month removed from his acquittal in bribery trial in early July, according to recordings of the meetings.

At the time, a movement had just ended to replace the elected parish president with an appointed parish manager. Council members were trying to create a competitive pay level for the new parish president who would take office a year and a half later, they said.

After the stunningly strong Ascension Parish Council defeat of A Better Ascension's proposed home rule charter amendment, one of the group's l

The then-prospective increase, from which Cointment is now benefiting, set the president's pay at $1 more than the highest paid of the sheriff, assessor and clerk of court, which works out to nearly $165,900 in 2020, those parish officials said.

Previously, Matassa and Martinez had been paid $100,000 annually under parish council ordinance and another $48,000 annually in stipends from parish drainage and utility districts, which the new council eliminated this year.

But with the old pay structure for the parish president still in place last fall and the new 2020 changes not yet in effect, the pay plan amendment added a new salary range for the job of parish president to an existing list that had been adopted several months earlier, Matassa and other current parish officials said.

The plan amendment's new minimum pay for the president's job boosted the portion of Matassa's salary set by ordinance at the time the $100,000 part of the salary by$13.20 per hour, the plan shows.

DONALDSONVILLE When the next president of Ascension Parish government takes office in January 2020, that person could pocket a $12,000 pay r

In recent interviews, Casso and other current and past parish council members said they were not aware of Matassa's final salary last year and did not realize their adoption of the pay plan in 2018 would have that effect.

"Hell, no," said former Councilman Oliver Joseph, who sat on the committee that vetted the plan.

The retroactive raise to mid-2018 also may have had another apparent benefit. The home rule charter bars pay increases for the parish president in the last year of a term, which, for Matassa, was in 2019.

Matassa: Give it to the lawyer

In an interview Monday, Matassa shared a similar story as the current officials.

He said that he never asked for a pay increase and didn't realize the August 2018 pay plan would have that effect on his pay. At some point after it took effect, Matassa said, anew payroll software system flagged his salary as being out of line with the new pay schedule, he said.

Once he was informed, he directed finance officials and legal adviser, O'Neil Parenton Jr., to determine what was appropriate.

"When this came up, I said give it to O'Neil and I said, 'Whatever's legal is legal,' and that's what happened. That's as much as I know," Matassa said.

Matassa couldn't say when finance officials first informed him of the salary discrepancy.Cointment officials said this happened in October, andpayroll records show that the change in pay was made on Oct. 22, 2019.

Just one day earlier, former state Alcohol and Tobacco Control Commissioner Murphy Painter, who had quiet support from Matassa, announced he was dropping out of the November presidential runoff election with Cointment, the leading vote-getter, Matassa rival and eventual winner.

GONZALES Murphy Painter, the former state Alcohol and Tobacco Control commissioner, has withdrawn from the race for Ascension Parish preside

In December, well after Matassa had received the onetime $30,228 payment for his back pay and had started being paid at the higher salary rate, the council agreed to pay him $231,829for his legal fees from the bribery case during a council meeting that was shared with residents via a spotty public broadcast and a less-than-clear meeting agenda.

Matassa, who by then knew about his increase since he was getting the bigger checks, nor any other parish officials ever mentioned his higher pay in the public portion of the December meeting where he got money for his legal fees. Matassa, council members and others also met in an extended closed-door session, however.

Change to plan not highlighted

In trying to explain how council members missed the impact that the pay plan would have on Matassa's pay, Casso and parish officials pointed out that the president's pay wasn't in an earlier pay plan revision adopted in February 2018.

Parish council minutes and a contemporaneous copy of the proposed list in council backup materials support this claim.

When the president's salary and other job changes were added to the proposed pay plan amendment eventually adopted in August 2018, the president's pay wasn't highlighted as the other pay changes were, Casso and Cointment administration officials said.

A copy of the proposal from the time and a video recording of a committee meeting on the plan changes appear to support this claim, also.

DONALDSONVILLE The Ascension Parish Council is the only government body in the parish to televise its meetings, sending videos of them out o

In a July 2018 Personnel Committee meeting, then-Human Resources Director Taleta Wesley, who was later fired after clashing with Matassa and who accused the parish of employment and ethics wrongdoing, can be heard confirming to then-Councilman Benny Johnson that the changes in the pay plan were highlighted.

"This is already a document that we had, but the changes that you made to it are in red, correct," Johnson asked.

"That is correct," Wesley responded.

Casso, who sat on the committee with Johnson, said members looked at the highlighted changes and must have missed the unhighlighted line for the president's pay.

Left unexplained by Matassa, Cointment administration officials or council members is who inserted the unhighlighted line to the pay plan in the first place that would end up affecting the then president's pay.

Johnson, then the committee chairman, and Councilman John Cagnolatti, another member of the committee, couldn't be reached Monday by cellphone. Wesley, who is embroiled in discrimination and other litigation with the parish, didn't return a message and text for comment Monday.

What about other employees?

As part of the broad organizational review of parish employment and management practices in the prior council term that led to the pay plan changes, parish officials and their consultants had noted that several long-serving parish employees had maxed out on the old pay scale and could only receive cost-of-living raises.

The Advocate asked Matassa and the Cointment administration officials Monday if other parish employees whose salaries fell under the pay ranges set by the new pay plan had also received increases or lump-sum checks for back pay, as Matassa had.

Matassa said he wasn't sure, but Cointment administration officials said eight other parish employees were affected by the August 2018 pay plan amendment.

The list of those employees wasn't immediately available Monday evening, so it's not clear how or if the plan's adoption affected their pay also.

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Kenny Matassa, cleared of wrongdoing, picks up extra $42K on his way out of office - The Advocate