You’re already on the hook for $9 million a year in tax dollars funneled to the criminal conspiracy known as the East Baton Rouge Council on Aging, but now there’s just a little more you’ll have to pay thanks to the rapacity of EBRCOA CEO Tasha Clark Amar and her minions.

To the tune of $821,000, that is.

The East Baton Rouge Council on Aging received $821,000 in Paycheck Protection Program funds – commonly known as PPP.

Names of organizations, mostly businesses, that applied for funds exceeding $150,000 of government stimulus were released this week. The taxpayer-funded EBR Council on Aging was among them.

A property tax makes up about $9 million of the Council on Aging’s $12 million budget.

The EBR Council on Aging appears on a grouping released by the federal government showing it received between $350,000 and $1 million in PPP funding.  The agency’s attorney said its exact figure was $821,000.

Attorney Murphy Foster told WBRZ Thursday, the money was used to pay the salaries of 142 employees.

Businesses were encouraged to apply for PPP funding to help keep them afloat during the coronavirus’ initial wave of cases and government lockdowns.  The money was used to pay salaries for businesses.

Foster said COA employees were used to serve thousands of meals in the spring, using 1,998 hours of overtime. About 3,000 new seniors were served, Foster said.

Foster provided information on the COA’s PPP process after COA director Tasha Clark Amar ignored WBRZ throughout the day Thursday.

Foster said the money was put to good use and believes the loan will be forgiven.

Foster added the Governor’s Office of Elderly Affairs encouraged the EBR COA to apply for the funds and that the decision to apply was made by Clark Amar and other office staff.  Board members WBRZ contacted Thursday seemed unaware of the loan.

Other, similar organizations received PPP money, Foster said, but WBRZ research showed those are not taxpayer funded.

What else can we say about this? The Council on Aging didn’t lose money because of the COVID-19 shutdown. Their funding was already baked in thanks to the hose-pipe they’ve attached to your wallet. That didn’t stop them from lining up at the PPP trough and stealing away funds that actual private companies could have used to stay afloat while the same government which butchered Louisiana’s small businesses with the economic shutdown was busy encouraging them to displace the private sector by applying.

Naturally, Congress wasn’t capable of writing a bill that would stop this kind of abuse. Of course not. The bill establishing the PPP came out of Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives, and it was held hostage by Chuck Schumer. The Council on Aging, which has become the Democrat Party’s taxpayer-funded get-out-the-vote apparatus, is exactly who Pelosi and Schumer wanted to see get that money.

And John Bel Edwards made damned sure they got it, didn’t he?

So if you’re a business owner who applied for PPP and you were shut out, just remember who got your money. You don’t matter; Tasha Clark Amar, Cruise-Ship Queen and Breaker Of Wills, does.