The new year marks just about two years that the Bossier Parish Police Jury has been breaking the law concerning how it governs its libraries, and it gives no indication it’s going to stop doing so any time soon.

Mark Jan. 10, 2024, as the day the Jury began to rack up legal violations. Statute places library governance in the hands of a library board of control for municipalities and, in this case, parishes. R.S. 25:215 states that the board of control shall have authority to establish rules and regulations for its own government and that of the library, not inconsistent with law. This includes employing and evaluating the library director, establishing and adopting written library policies, working to secure adequate funding for the library system, adopting the library system’s annual budget, and taking responsibility for providing and maintaining library facilities, resources, and services.

The governing authority, in this case the Jury, has its involvement defined largely in R.S. 25:214. It appoints members to the board and, through R.S. 33:1415 referenced in that statute and R.S. 25:220.1, also exercises budgetary and fiscal control. This includes approval of annual operating budgets, with the right to veto or reduce line items, and the authority to vet and approve any submission to the voters to levy taxes or issue bonds. In succeeding sections, statutes state that the head librarian (synonymous with director of libraries) and the Jury are to deliver an annual report; that the Jury must pay monthly library expenses out of any special tax levied for that purpose and, if insufficient, from its general fund; and that the Jury must approve any gifts received for the library system, while the board must approve any expenditures from those funds.

The 2024 meeting both began and ended problematically, beginning with the fact that it was the 2024 meeting – and none have been held since. Not having a meeting since then triggered a slew of violations, most prominently the requirement that the board meet at least annually, which it did not do in 2025. Legally, three officers must be elected on an annual basis while the library director serves as secretary; that also was not done in 2025. At that meeting, no budget was proposed or adopted, nor, obviously, was one adopted for 2025. And because the Jury must legally approve a budget passed by the Board, it has not done so for the past two years, regardless of the fact that it did pass a budget for the library system.

There were problems on the front end as well. Legally, a board is comprised of five to seven members (unless statute provides a specific exception) with five-year overlapping terms. However, the 2024 meeting specified that all 12 jurors were the Board—a clear violation of law. Prior to that, since 2016 the Jury had placed some of its own members on the Board, but as late as early 2020 five of the then seven members were non-jurors. Then the Jury systematically began removing the five citizen members through 2023 and replacing them with jurors until all members were jurors, and by the last meeting of 2023, on Nov. 15, it had dialed membership back to five.

Yet even if the Jury – which had “suspended” the ordinance that established the Board, even though statute says the governing authority “shall” (that is, not optionally) have a board if there is a public library – had kept the Board at five to seven members, all jurors, it still would have been breaking the law. There was no formal appointment of new members as one each year of the five jurors who had been duly appointed rolled off in 2024 and 2025. Technically, the Board now has three open, unfilled positions – one of which occurred immediately at the 2024 meeting because, even as the Jury alleged in its previous November meeting that it had appointed all 12 jurors to the Board (but wasn’t it suspended?), already-appointed member and Democrat former juror Charles Gray had lost reelection, despite his board term running through September 2026.

At least one legal breach was corrected a couple of years ago. For several months, previous parish administrator Butch Ford had served as library director, even though state law disqualified him from doing so. That violation was rectified with the hiring of the current director, Felesha Sweeney.

Beyond the law, the disappearance of the Board also violates the parish’s own library policy and procedures. These require Board participation in hiring the director, being informed of all new hires, and resolving grievances.

So, to summarize, at present the Jury is violating the law in five ways:

• It claims that all 12 jurors are Board members, when the law allows seven voting members at most.
• The Jury, which must appoint board members, has failed to appoint three of the five to seven members, and counting, to the Board.
• The Board, which must meet at least annually, did not meet in the most recent year.
• The Board has not elected officers in the most recent year, which it must do annually.
• The Board, which must present a library budget to the Jury annually, failed to approve library budgets for the past two years.

Recall Luke 16:10. If citizens can’t trust the Jury in a small matter like this, how can they trust jurors in large matters? Jurors take an oath to uphold the law, but unfortunately this is just another demonstration that the Jury will act lawlessly when it thinks it can – though it could take a first step towards reassuring citizens by bringing the parish into compliance on the matter.