DESOTO PARISH, LA (KSLA) -
People won't see as many new road projects in the coming months in DeSoto Parish. Several projects have been tabled because of budget issues. To understand why the Parish faces millions of dollars in cuts, you have to take a few steps back.
Parish administrators say it all starts with oil and gas production.
"It's 99% Haynesville Shale activity. I'd like to point out that a couple of years ago we had 60-something active drilling rigs in the parish. Just a couple of months ago the count was down to less than 10," said DeSoto Parish Police Jury Administrator, Steve Brown.
Without the shale jobs and shale money coming into DeSoto fewer people are stopping by places like Joyce Dodson's office supply store downtown.
"I would say maybe 20%, 20-30% drop per month," said Dodson.
Billy B's Cajun Grill has lost a good chunk of its large to go orders.
"We've definitely slowed down a lot with our catering as far as catering out to the oil well services and the frak crews that aren't quite here any more," said Billy B's Owner, Billy Bennet.
Because sales are down so dramatically, the parish sales tax revenues are down about 70% from a year ago. That drop means less money for improvements. Parish staff says they expected a downturn, but the size of the downturn surprised them.
"We had budgeted almost a 20% lower amount of money for this fiscal year at the beginning of the year expecting the downturn, but we didn't expect it to be this significant, this rapid," said Brown.
Brown said DeSoto Parish has money in savings in case of an emergency, but they are trying to tighten their belt by cutting projects so they don't have to dip into that fund. The Parish is also optimistic that in a few years the demand for natural gas drilling will go back up, and they hope the same domino effect will fall in their favor.
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