Like many in LA, Bossier City marshal enjoys gravy train

Want to make more compensation than Bossier City's police chief but be responsible for far fewer employees and duties? Get yourself elected city marshal.

If you’re an honest cop in Bossier City but you want to collect big paydays, get yourself elected as city marshal.

That’s what a Louisiana Legislative Auditor report reveals that investigated all marshals of city courts in the state. There are almost 50, with some of the smaller jurisdictions making few demands and paying accordingly. Others, however, earn a lot more and even in some places that don’t have larger populations.

Marshals serve as enforcement officers of courts but can have duties beyond just carrying out security and court orders, as varied as state law and contracting opportunities allow. For example, Baton Rouge’s run the city jail, Bossier City’s monitors probationers from its city court and provides security for City Council meetings, and Oakdale’s has a patrol division hunting down speeders.

State law provides for a number of basic minimum salary schemes, but with the exception of Houma none is more than $15,000 annually. The real potential payoff comes from state law that assigns fees for various services performed (except for one in New Orleans and Baton Rouge’s) which some very actively collect and keep beyond the expenses that local governments pick up. And for many, local governments kick in nice salaries far above the minimum and also may slather on plenty of benefits. Aiding in their revenue collecting, jurisdictions are allowed to have deputies and the law sets a minimum compensation paid by local governments, plus any who are Peace Officer Standards and Training certified can receive the state supplement of $600 monthly along with any other amount that a marshal wishes to add on.

Which brings us to Republican Jim Whitman, Bossier City marshal. He raked in $160,276 in 2023. Consider this, the tenth-highest amount in the state, is more than that earned by Shreveport’s, Baton Rouge’s constable, or either of New Orleans’ constables.

Emulating larger jurisdictions, and even a couple that are smaller, in population, fee collection doesn’t figure into his compensation although it comprises almost the entirety of his office’s own generated revenues. While state law mandates that the city pay him at least $5,000 and the parish $2,200, the city throws in an extra $82,800 as well as $27.269 in benefits. But his office itself from its collections gave him an extra $29,600 in salary, $4,588 in benefits, and $1,619 in reimbursements. In fact, the only part of his compensation that doesn’t come from the city or his office giving him funds straight up is his state supplemental pay.

In all, in 2023 the city kicked in $1,257,134 to the marshal’s office, while it generated $432,011, but expenses attached to that revenue generation were slightly higher. Basically, the probation monitoring function subsidized the office’s other activities. Ironically, while the city footed the major portion of Whitman’s salary as part of its subsidization of an office with fewer than 20 employees, it paid its own police chief only about $20,000 more in salary and less in total compensation, who oversaw around 200 employees with much broader responsibilities.

All of this because Whitman, who has worked in the office for over two decades, won an election. He earned a second term in 2020, running unopposed. As a result, it didn’t cost him a cent in campaign expenditures. When he originally ran in 2014, he spent around $123,000 – a pretty good investment to earn in all likelihood over ten times that in taxpayer dollars as the decade passed. It’s an arrangement the city’s Charter Review Commission that operated earlier this year – including in membership his wife, the wife of the city judge for whose court he draws responsibility, and the wife of the principal of the accounting firm that audits his books – didn’t come close to touching in its change recommendations for other city institutions.

Of course, the office itself isn’t really necessary. The tasks it performs the sheriff’s office or police department could handle, and at reduced expense (the same is true for a marshal’s non-city counterparts, constables). However, Louisiana has had these comfortable sinecures back into the nineteenth century and the Legislature seems in no hurry to alter all of this.

So, this pot of gold is available (next chance: 2026), but you’ll have to get past the Bossier political establishment and convince the voters to gain access to it.