By: ELIZABETH WEST
Associate Editor
Before the Evangeline Parish Police Jury began their regular meeting Monday night, the Executive Committee discussed computer security concerns.
In March the police jury’s computer system was hacked by ransomware, which means that criminals have locked digital files and demanded ransom before they would unlock any of the documents.
According to the police jury’s secretary Donald Bergeron, what caused this to happen to the EPPJ’s computer system is unknown, but “could have been caused by an employee clicking on an email that was spam.”
The secretary went on to say that the computer hackers encrypted files that were Word documents and Excel documents. By encrypting these documents, the police jury was unable to access them anymore.
At this point, Bergeron said, “By using our backup system we have been able to recover almost all of the encrypted files without having to pay anything. There is however about 12 months of Word documents and Excel documents that we have not been able to recover.”
Bergeron did point out though, that no personal information had been stolen.
He also stated that, “Louisiana just adopted the Comprehensive Information Security Plan, and the police jury has begun to take the necessary steps to keep this from happening again, and to make sure personal information is protected.”
While no personal information has been stolen, the police jury will have to recreate about 12 months of budgets because they were unable to recover that information.
Even in the midst of dealing with computer hackers, the police jury has begun making strides in collecting unpaid sewer bills.
The police jury is unable to cut off someone’s sewer service, and for that reason they chose to request to have the Reddell Vidrine Water District shut off someone’s water that has not been paying their sewer bills.
During their regular meeting, the EPPJ was updated by Bergeron about the progress that has been made in this matter.
Bergeron said, “I have sent letters to 12 of the individuals that were on the high end of how much is owed for their sewer.”
The secretary then continued, “10 out of the 12 people that we sent letters to have already contacted us, and eight of those 10 have set up payment agreements.”
According to Bergeron, approximately $20,000.00 could be collected from unpaid sewer bills.
Police Juror Eric Soileau said, “We want to thank the Reddell Vidrine Water District for helping us collect these unpaid bills.”
Because this has been working so well, Bergeron said, “We will be sending out additional letters to others who haven’t been paying.”
Even through dealing with a computer security problem and unpaid sewer bills, the police jury still found time to work on giving back.
Jill Stevens with Every Paw Animal Rescue (EPAR) addressed the jury at the April 4, 2016 regular meeting, and asked the jurors if they could help the non-profit animal rescue group by donating $100 a month to EPAR.
The $100 Stevens requested would be used to help pay for the strays in the parish that EPAR is paying to have euthanized.
Police Juror Bryan Vidrine said, “We are not allowed to donate money but what we can do is get the bills from y’all and pay those bills. I would be in favor of paying more than $100, because the service you guys are doing definitely helps us and the parish.”
The EPPJ decided to table this discussion until after they are able to study exactly where the funds that will be used to help pay for the euthanization of parish strays will come from.
This topic will be re-addressed at next month’s committee meeting.
Other items discussed and approved were:
•Reappointment of Bradley Ardoin to Library Board.
•Appointment of Shawn Devillier to the Ville Platte Fire District #2 board.
•Appointment of Donald Bergeron as representative for the jury for the 2040 Regional Transit Study.
•Increase transfer of funds from Ward 2 to Ward 3 to 15% - District #3.
•Approve the payment of conference travel to the LEPA Conference for Mona Nelson and Sherry Buller.
•Approve changing the speed limit on Sand Trap Rd. from 5-mph to 15-mph.
•Adopt a proclamation for National Fair Housing Month.