A former Lincoln Parish Police Jury Treasurer will assume some of the duties she formerly had at the jury, and jury Administrator Doug Postel will be the Interim Treasurer, it was decided at last night’s special called meeting of the jury.
Laura Hartt, who was Parish Treasurer from 2015 to 2017, will work part-time on a contract basis and perform accounting services for the jury. She moved to the City of Ruston and served as the City Clerk for 2 1/2 years before returning to private practice with her husband early last year.
Postel noted that she already provides a similar service for Morehouse Parish, and will work about 40 hours per month at an $85/hr. rate.
“She’s available to start tomorrow. She’ll utilize some of the (police jury) staff” to do some of the work, jury President Richard Durrett said. “We need to name Doug (Postel) Interim Treasurer to sign the necessary documents” he added.
Hartt and Postel will serve until a new permanent Treasurer can be hired. Presumably, that process will get underway soon.
The jury also contracted with their auditor to perform an exit audit of the jury’s books, a standard procedure whenever there are personnel changes in key positions
01/22/2021 at 2:20 pm |
What a tangled web we weave
01/22/2021 at 3:16 pm |
Postel’s background is education, not accounting. This has disaster written all over it. smh
01/22/2021 at 3:36 pm |
And Hartt didn’t even stay around the first time she was there. She jumped into the Walker circus thinking greener pastures. But oh how it wasn’t so then she left there.
01/22/2021 at 3:50 pm |
Doesn’t have a background in public administration either, but here he is faking it and causing drama along the way. As always.
01/22/2021 at 3:58 pm |
But but why was he fired from Delta?
01/22/2021 at 6:24 pm |
Postel and trouble go hand and hand
01/22/2021 at 9:31 pm |
Two things Walt should be asking his good buddy Hyde….
Did he leave bc he was about to be fired?
And when is Hyde gonna move bc he’ll never be able to work up there in Lincoln parish again with durrett in charge
01/22/2021 at 9:36 pm |
Hyde has his Daddy’s cpa office so it’s not like he’s unemployed . He came from there and goes back there. The jurors should have seen that coming when they put all their trust in him. Shame on them for hiring him in first place.
01/22/2021 at 9:50 pm |
Walt, you think he was running his dads cpa firm out of the treasurers office at LPPJ? 🤔
01/22/2021 at 10:02 pm |
Good question. Why did he even apply when he already worked at daddy’s cpa office?
01/22/2021 at 10:03 pm |
Jurors should be held accountable for hiring him also with that knowledge . That’s a huge flag. A son doesn’t want to work for dads cpa office?
01/22/2021 at 10:18 pm |
No. That’s probably a tactic coming from a jury member or the third floor of the courthouse to divert attention and take the spotlight off of them.
Here’s a clue. The spotlight will always be on you.
There’s been so much controversy in the last year nobody knows what to believe about anything anymore.
They are supposed to be taking care of business. But it’s like they’re little kids playing dress-up pretending to be adults. Pathetic.
Still holding out hope for Durrett.
01/22/2021 at 10:23 pm |
But why would he even want to leave an established practice of his daddy’s? Only to turn around less than a year later and stick it to the jury because they didn’t accommodate him?
01/22/2021 at 10:37 pm |
Probably a lot more going on than the public will ever know. They feed the press what they want the public to hear as much as they possibly can. We get to hear and know only what is required by law. Not the interesting bits that go on in the background.
01/22/2021 at 10:53 pm |
Would you leave a sure thing job in your dads established practice? Something fishy.,Jury should have questioned that right away and noticed his youth & naivety .
01/22/2021 at 11:07 pm |
I would. To prove I didn’t need daddy to succeed. To prove I could do it on my own. That’s not a point that’s convincing me something is fishy about Hyde.
01/22/2021 at 11:11 pm |
It’s strange. He could have inherited his dads business. Why mess with the jury to then only leave less than a year later? Shows lack of stability. Also a degree of cockiness that he thought he could tell them he needed even more compensation?
01/22/2021 at 11:19 pm |
Shows lack of stability yes. The argument is whose lack of stability. Chris is not the first treasurer to quit in the last four years. The fact that he worked for his dad and could have inherited the business doesn’t mean anything. It’s a distraction being used to confuse the seriousness of the real situation—the ineptness and/or corruption of the jury. I know a lot of people who didn’t want to work for family or inherit their family’s business. His dad could be an jerk. I don’t know the man.
01/23/2021 at 8:32 am |
All of you guys talk like he wasn’t still working for his dad while he was treasurer
01/23/2021 at 8:37 am |
And that my friend is a problem. He should have been 100% dedicated to the jury. But they should have seen it coming . Even his comment that he had planned to quit for many months.
01/23/2021 at 8:43 am |
Placing all the blame on Hyde now? Convenient.
Forgetting that he walked into a job where there was already high turnover? Convenient.
Spinning the fact that he wanted to leave months ago as a failing on his part instead of the failings of the jury? Convenient.
01/23/2021 at 8:47 am |
Yes we are
01/23/2021 at 8:50 am |
I can look at a calendar and put my finger on the exact day he probably started thinking about leaving.
01/23/2021 at 8:54 am |
The day after he started the job?
01/23/2021 at 9:28 am |
Lol probably the evening the PJ tabled his reappointment. If they would have given him everything he wanted then I imagine he’d still be there.
01/23/2021 at 9:32 am
But that’s not how the universe turns. We don’t get everything we want. However the younger generation seems to think they can.
01/23/2021 at 9:46 am |
The day they showed their true colors when they offered Postel the PA job after offering it to Calloway?
01/23/2021 at 9:53 am |
Nah he was hired before the administrator. Surely he did his research before applying? He knew the history but went for it anyway.
01/23/2021 at 10:01 am
Your timeline makes no sense in reponse to that comment.
01/23/2021 at 10:38 am
Looks as if Hyde only stayed one year at City West Monroe too. Definitely stability issue.
01/23/2021 at 9:58 am |
Notice how Ruston’s very own Pravda tends to make sure anything they run about the pj lately paints the pj in the best light possible and those of us who actually know what’s going on are left shaking our heads? Caleb Daniel notwithstanding. He’s been quiet with his op-ed honesty lately.
01/25/2021 at 8:26 am |
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. — Michael Crichton
01/23/2021 at 10:46 pm |
Hyde was with the City of West Monroe in excess of five years. Prior to that he did governmental audits. He should know exactly what works and what does not in governmental agencies, he has experience. He bought a home in Ruston 2019 and moved from West Monroe. Someone wrote on this site he was out during Hurricane Laura helping others, that is exactly correct. While he was out working the parish he was having to deal with a huge trees that had fallen on his home during the hurricane and did extensive damage. Repairs are still ongoing. Know your facts before your spout off! It’s not about his stability. This is from one of his neighbors and friends, I am not a LPPJ employee, his mother, etc.
01/23/2021 at 11:09 pm |
Cry me a river . We don’t care. He left a job without even a two weeks notice. Older experienced people don’t do that. He’s too wet under the collar and young. We don’t care about what he did during hurricane. Most of Lincoln parish did that. Many people suffered. Has zero to do with accounting. Much larger is that he left without giving proper notice.
01/23/2021 at 11:09 pm |
Hyde is history with the jury . Why are we still discussing him? He’s a has been now.
01/23/2021 at 11:11 pm |
Governmental audits? Where? He’s barely out of college.
01/24/2021 at 12:16 am |
Sounds like we have police jurors on here justifying their actions at any cost. Not saying Hyde handled things the way he should have. But there’s obviously some more shady shit going on that the public doesn’t know about and someone or more than one someone is on this website trying to deflect attention, pretend nothing is wrong, and ignore the concerns of the public. Because obviously the public is not smart enough to see that, right? Let’s just throw out some alternative facts and hope no serious inquiries are done. Just sayin’
Deflect, Pretend, Ignore: the jury’s new motto.
01/24/2021 at 9:13 am |
Yep. Let’s distract the public with some juicy bits of info that don’t matter so their eyes are not trained on us.
Again: Hyde is just the last in a string of treasurers that left quickly after assuming the position. What is going on in the pj and in that office that is causing that?
Doesn’t matter that he was cocky. Doesn’t matter that he didn’t give two weeks notice. Hyde is not the issue at this point. The issue is the pattern of treasurers leaving. Address that for us police jury member(s) who are posting here instead of pretending it isn’t happening.
Be stand up people for once in your tenure.
01/24/2021 at 9:39 am |
Cocky doesn’t cut it . Requesting more money from an employer rarely works long term. Especially when youngun had not even been there a year. He doesn’t command that. Dime a dozen.
01/24/2021 at 11:07 am |
Probably. But I agree that it’s a distraction from the real issue.
01/25/2021 at 10:50 pm |
Yeah the dude thought he didn’t have to do his job
01/24/2021 at 2:06 pm |
If LPPJ fired you would they give u 2 weeks notice?
01/24/2021 at 3:03 pm |
Good way to look at it. Hyde fired the LPPJ for being certified a**holes. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
01/24/2021 at 4:04 pm |
Don’t agree. They tabled his rehiring because he was the a hole . So he quit. Because he knew he didn’t get what he wanted.
01/24/2021 at 4:13 pm |
Don’t give them any credit. They don’t deserve it. Don’t care what Hyde did or didn’t do. The LPPJ is a farce.
01/24/2021 at 4:19 pm |
You think they care? They are still working and he’s not.
01/24/2021 at 4:24 pm |
If they want to keep their elected positions, they better care what the public thinks. I agree with the above comment. Sounds like police jurors are commenting and now they’re on the defensive.
01/26/2021 at 7:59 am |
Imagined conversation overheard in the halls of the police jury:
“Now that we’ve trashed Chris’ reputation, we need to do the same to the last few treasurers that have left in the last five years: Megan, Laura, Holly, and Bobby. Let’s make sure the dumb public doesn’t blame us for anything. We have to get them distracted from the pattern.”
“Leave Bobby out of it. He was sick, and he retired anyway.”
“Leave Laura out of it. We need her to take the fall for the other stupid/unethical shit we will inevitably do.”
“How do we make sure Richard doesn’t know we’re doing this?”
01/26/2021 at 1:26 pm |
It’s all so comical. Gee if they could only for once hire a qualified treasurer instead of these half hearted arrogant young things using it for just a step in their careers. Stop blaming the jurors and maybe blame the generation for not appreciating their job when many have none. Our ancestors would have been able to stick it out. Good jury bad jury no matter. These are lightweights .
01/26/2021 at 1:50 pm |
I disagree. Nobody should have to tolerate that level of incompetence or the lack of truth and honesty. There’s so much spin that comes out of that office it almost breaks your neck trying to keep up.
I do agree with a comment about Holly though. The best thing that had happened to the pj in a long time and they ran her off. She’s working for the sheriff’s office now, I think. Interesting that the sheriff’s office (or assessor) doesn’t seem to be too happy with the pj and its administration lately either.
It’s also interesting that the pj likes to point fingers at everyone else instead of taking a hard look at what’s going on within their own offices.
Maybe Hyde quitting and causing such a stink will be good for everyone? Maybe they’ll actually do some soul searching and try to correct the real problems.
01/26/2021 at 1:55 pm |
Nah. Hyde’s not that important. Keep telling yourself they need to do soul searching. See where it gets you. Hyde isn’t God. Just another one bites the dust. There are ten more waiting in the wings to take his place. His ego should have stepped down a notch. And sheriffs dept doesn’t -have- to like the PJ. The world keeps turning even if they don’t.
01/26/2021 at 2:25 pm |
True. The pj doesn’t have to play nice. They can screw up, blame someone else, and move on to the next foul up. The other agencies have to fall in line.
01/26/2021 at 1:57 pm |
Wait. The pj gets to demand truth and loyalty from their employees but they’re not required to walk that walk?
01/26/2021 at 2:06 pm |
Who is demanding truth and loyalty? Didn’t see anyone post that. Hyde thought he was all that. Simple. They evaluated and thought differently. Employers are free to do that. Though his situation did play out differently than the previous ones. They didn’t try to call the shots for more compensation . They simply found new jobs. Which is allowed. Did you also like Trump? He didn’t win. Newsflash.
01/26/2021 at 2:15 pm |
A comment above mentioned that everyone of them needed to “stick it out.” Employees are free to evaluate as well. No need to run Hyde’s name through the mud just because he didn’t give 2 weeks notice or what the hell ever. And don’t throw in ego. Postel’s ego is a lot bigger than Hyde’s ever was.
Trump is a loser. Just like Marvin Franks in November. Just like a lot of the other new jurors will be in a couple of years if talk in parish offices and elsewhere is anything to go by. Unless something changes. They’ve begun their tenures…how shall I say it? Very tenuously.
Hyde? He just got caught in the cross-fire.
01/26/2021 at 2:56 pm |
They won’t be gone if re elected. It is Ruston did you forget?
01/28/2021 at 3:41 pm |
Those dime a dozen parish treasurers make $110K in bossier parish which if I’m not mistaken is more than Postel.
01/28/2021 at 3:43 pm |
Because Ruston is a small lame wannabe town. No matter what mayor thinks.
01/28/2021 at 3:44 pm |
Get some liquor sold in Walmart or Super 1. Until then you are only a little guy.
01/28/2021 at 6:38 pm |
if we build enough hotels and el jarritos we’ll be up and up soon enough
01/28/2021 at 7:05 pm |
That’s the truth. We have a buttload of Mexican restaurants but can’t entice any restaurants worth anything. Can’t get a decent grocery chain. Can’t get anything which is why most drive East or west to eat out and shop. Downtown looming like ghost town but with art murals which nobody cares about.
01/29/2021 at 7:12 am |
That may be one of the problems. the pj doesn’t know what their treasurers are worth so they leave for bigger salaries elsewhere. completely understandable
01/29/2021 at 7:22 am |
Not at all. Hyde was being paid plenty. Big ego. Young mind.
01/29/2021 at 7:46 am |
It wasn’t just Hyde though
01/29/2021 at 8:00 am |
One retired correct ? due to health and he lasted a long time . One of them said job was too hard so she left. One of them snagged by Walker and his greener pastures so she left. Guess they weren’t that green since she also left him. Now she’s back helping the jury? Guess she doesn’t think it’s such a bad gig.
01/29/2021 at 8:05 am |
How do you know she said it was too hard?
01/29/2021 at 8:52 am |
She’s a friend of mine . I went to church with her.
01/29/2021 at 8:06 am |
And what about Holly? Have anything negative to say about her?
01/29/2021 at 8:52 am |
I don’t know Holly
01/29/2021 at 8:14 am |
I’d come back too if I were being contracted $3400 for each week’s work I did. What is that $176K per year? I guess technically the jury really doesn’t have a problem with paying their treasurer more than the pay their administrator. I realize it’s only one week out of the month, but the point is still the same.
01/29/2021 at 8:54 am |
Right. Maybe Postel needs to question the huge pay she will be getting. More than he is getting. When he will be the acting treasurer and signing the checks.
01/29/2021 at 11:06 am |
Yeah. They must not think he’s doing that great a job if they’re not willing to pay him as much as they’re paying the treasurer. He needs to ask for more. Just to see if they’re consistent with their response to pay raise requests at least. He’s only been there 6 months or so.
01/31/2021 at 11:52 am |
This is idiotic.
01/31/2021 at 1:09 pm |
They weren’t willing to pay the treasurer what he tried to demand. The reason he took his toys and left.
02/02/2021 at 9:41 am |
You get what you pay for?
02/02/2021 at 12:13 pm |
They sure have last few they hired. Not a stable one in bunch.