BATON ROUGE, LA – With East Baton Rouge Parish under investigation for alleged corruption, the Legislative Auditor reportedly decided to skip the part where everyone pretends this is shocking and instead offer practical guidance.
“If you’re going to steal,” the auditor allegedly told parish officials, “at least steal from the department with $140 million in the bank.”
According to recent per-capita comparisons, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library spends roughly $150 per resident, more than double what Houston manages at $63, Dallas at $70, and Los Angeles at $65. And despite outspending those major cities by a wide margin, the library still has $140 million sitting in cash reserves, proving that even after spending more than everyone else, there is apparently still plenty left over.
“Other departments are basically on life support,” the auditor reportedly explained. “CATS is rolling dimes to fill up buses with fuel, public works is duct-taping equipment together and the Police Department is having to use Uber to respond to calls since they can’t afford vehicles. If someone insists on helping themselves, the library is the only place with enough padding to survive it.”
The blunt suggestion follows the recent indictment of a public official accused of stealing from CATS, an agency that does not have nine figures in reserve quietly collecting interest.
The auditor says his reasoning was simple: why raid a department that will immediately collapse when you can skim from one that won’t even notice?
Several other parish departments admitted they’d happily volunteer to be defrauded out of a couple hundred grand by a council member, just as soon as someone tops off their checking accounts with “a hundred mil” to cushion the blow.
