This section sets how water district commissioners organize, elect officers, handle the secretary’s bond and salary, choose a fiscal agent, and manage district funds.
§3817. Officers of board of commissioners of district; fiscal agent A. The police jury shall designate a time and place within the waterworks district for the commissioners to meet. The commissioners must meet within sixty days after the date of their appointment and elect officers as follows: (1) They shall elect from among their number a president and a vice president. The president shall preside over the meetings of the board and perform other duties usually required of presidents of corporate bodies. The vice president shall act in the absence of the president. (2) They shall elect as secretary a person assessed with property in his name or in the name of his wife to the amount of at least five hundred dollars. The secretary shall furnish a bond in a sum equal to the amount of taxes collected in the district and the amount of funds otherwise held by or collected by him during any one year. The premium on his bond shall be paid by the waterworks district. B. The waterworks commissioners may, in their discretion, employ a president and a secretary on either a part-time or full-time basis and shall fix the salary of such positions, which shall not exceed three thousand six hundred dollars per annum, payable monthly. The president and secretary shall perform all of the duties required of them by the board of commissioners of the waterworks district. The secretary also may be treasurer. (C)(1)(a) The board of commissioners of the water district shall, at the time of their organization, select one of the solvent chartered banks within the parish where the district is organized in which all of the money of the district shall be deposited. (b) On the first Monday in June of any year in which the term of a fiscal agent expires, the board of commissioners shall elect a fiscal agent for a term of no more than three years. (c) The board shall advertise its intent to select a fiscal agent at least fifteen days prior to the election in a newspaper published in the district, and if there is not a newspaper published within the district, then in the official journal of the parish where the district is located; however, the board of commissioners may renew the election of a fiscal agent for one additional term without such advertisement. (d) Any funds received by the Lafourche water district from or for its sewerage system shall be maintained within the same or a separate account, as directed by the Lafourche Parish Police Jury. (2) Any violation of this Subsection shall be sufficient grounds for the summary removal of the president and secretary of the board. Amended by Acts 1952, No. 124, §1; Acts 1960, No. 418, §1; Acts 1974, No. 440, §1; Acts 1990, No. 751, §1; Acts 2003, No. 1100, §1, eff. July 1, 2003; Acts 2013, No. 11, §1, eff. June 2, 2014.