Provides with respect to the salaries of assistant district attorneys and the operating budget of the district attorney in the Twenty-Second Judicial District

House Bill 641 amends Louisiana's statutory framework for the Twenty-Second Judicial District by modifying how assistant district attorney salaries are funded, set, and protected, while establishing a comprehensive operating budget framework for the district attorney's office. Specifically, the bill amends R.S. 16:483 and 484 to replace a fixed eight thousand dollar per annum supplemental salary structure with a discretionary salary-setting mechanism, enacts new R.S. 16:488 to create an operating budget framework, and repeals R.S. 16:485 through 487, which previously established specific assistant district attorney positions. Under the revised structure, the district attorney now sets individual assistant district attorney salaries from annually budgeted parish funds, subject to the constraint that total budgeted salary funds cannot be reduced after six months in effect. The bill also creates a detailed operating budget entitlement covering staff salaries, office supplies, equipment, insurance, federal grant matching funds, and professional development expenses, funded by the governing authorities of St. Tammany and Washington parishes.

The practical effect of this legislation is to shift salary determination authority from a rigid statutory formula to the discretion of the district attorney while simultaneously mandating that parish governing authorities appropriate sufficient funds to pay these discretionary salaries. Assistant district attorneys will no longer receive a guaranteed eight thousand dollar supplement split equally between the two parishes; instead, they will receive compensation determined individually by their district attorney from a collectively budgeted pool. The district attorney gains expanded hiring authority to appoint additional assistants beyond a statutory minimum, with these additional assistants serving at pleasure. Parish officials are required to annually budget adequate funds for assistant district attorney compensation and must maintain the total operating budget amount for the office once it has been in effect for six months, with narrow exceptions allowing pro rata reductions applied uniformly across all county departments during revenue shortfalls.

This legislation operates within Louisiana's constitutional and statutory system for district attorney compensation and operations, existing alongside the general compensation framework in R.S. 16:6, which provides baseline expense allowances to all district attorneys statewide. The bill specifically addresses the Twenty-Second Judicial District, which encompasses St. Tammany and Washington parishes, previously bound by a fixed supplemental salary regime that required the two parishes to contribute equally. The budget protection provisions in the amended section C establish a form of statutory protection against appropriations reduction, distinguishing between the operating budget and capital outlay, with the latter remaining subject to reduction for items not including office equipment, furniture, communication equipment, law library expenses, and computer systems. This creates a bifurcated budget protection scheme that shields operational functionality while preserving some parish control over capital investments.