(The Center Square) – If residents of Bogalusa were hoping to get a better understanding of the city’s finances, they may have to wait longer.
Critics are many against Robert Neilson, the city’s court-appointed fiscal administrator and former auditor of two decades for the community. He appeared with Mayor Tyrin Truong on Monday at the Legislature before an audit advisory council.
Most people who testified about the Louisiana city of about 10,000 made clear they wanted Neilson removed from the position, which includes complete control over the city’s finances. Neilson was appointed at the request of the City Council, which owed more than $10 million in various debts.
But, what really has Bogalusa residents riled up is the “disrespect” and “lack of transparency” from Neilson, who took the reins in March. Since then, according to Debra McCloud, “there’s chaos at City Hall, there’s no line of communication, there’s no transparency.”
One issue of importance was the seemingly intentional isolation of the mayor from his city’s finances. Truong said he is locked out of one of his two offices. The office which he does have access to is without internet and has no access to the city’s server and is thus unable to access the city’s finances and documents.
Truong said that in order to secure records from his city, he has had to file public records requests, which he paid for himself. Neilson disputed this saying that the office without internet and access to city documents is the real mayor’s office. According to Neilson, the office Truong was working out of was the public works office.
Neilson also took fire for his previous position as the city’s auditor, which he held for 20 years.
“You cannot be an auditor for an organization for 20 years, ignore the decline, and then be tasked with turning it around.” Truong said.
“If you were the auditor for the past 20 years … did you not see these issues in those past 20 years?” state Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge, asked Neilson. “He’s been the auditor, by his admission for 20 years, and these issues, even though he can’t actually fix them, you would think if you reported it enough over a 20-year period, you would either say, ‘Hey, look, you need to fix this,’ or maybe, “I don’t need to be your auditor.’”
Truong and Nielson eventually made their way to the table, where they sat side by side. Each accused the other of lying, incompetence and spent a great deal of their testimony refuting what the other said.
The people in the audience were clearly unhappy with Neilson. Annoyed gasps and blurts were heard in the audience with much of what Nielsen said when he attempted to defend his findings and decisions.
Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Bogalusa, expressed her shock at the uncooperative nature of the duo.
“I feel like I’m watching two parents fighting for custody of a child,” Mizell said. “And the child is at home, waiting for resolution, and a little bit of it is that those parents enjoy stirring up the neighbors more than they care about the child they’ve left at home. I’m tired of social media. I’m tired of being accused of things. I’m tired of people who love the city being mud slung continually.”
“We just can’t tolerate this level of dysfunction,” Jordan said.
The purpose of the meeting was to hear from Neilson about a coming audit, which will detail Bogalusa’s finances for 2022. The city never submitted the audit because the finances were in such bad shape, according to Mike Waguespack, Louisiana’s state auditor. In other words, the city is still reconciling funds from three years ago.
“There were a lot of numbers thrown around today,” Waguespack told The Center Square. “We don’t have an audited number. We have an audited number for 2022, which shows a $1.7 million surplus.”
For last year, Neilson projects there was a $5.7 million deficit, but Truong said this was inaccurate.
“It’s inaccurate because our ad valorem taxes totaled $4.6 million and came in January of 2025, which is why it doesn’t show up in the system for 2024, so it’s not an actual deficit,” Truong told The Center Square. “Mayor Perrette also left us with about $2.2 million in past due bills which we paid out in 2023.”
