(The Center Square) — Caddo Parish is footing a hefty bill yearly as one parish official was paid nearly $400,000 in 2023, with a few others making $150,000 or more.
According to salary data provided to The Center Square by Open the Books through a public records request , Caddo Parish’s top five salaries ranged between $160,000 and nearly $400,000.
The parish paid $1.2 million combined for the top five salaries in 2023. In total, Caddo Parish paid close to $16 million to pay all the earnings of those employed on the parish payroll.
Before Caddo Parish Administrator Woodrow Wilson Jr. retired in July of 2023, he received a reported $383,116 yearly. Wilson spent 17 years as administrator and CEO of Caddo Parish. He passed the torch to the now-current Parish Administrator Erica Bryant, who made $249,971 in 2023.
The other top salaries in the parish include Parish Attorney Donna Frazier at $196,166, Director of Public Works Timothy Weaver at $178,891 and Director of Finance Hayley Barnett at $167,660.
The five lowest reported salaries in the parish were all under $1,000.
When it comes to juvenile services, many officials make six figures or close to it, but they didn’t approach the top salary mark. The top three salaries in 2023 for juvenile services were Juvenile Services Director Andrew Randall at $107,387, Juvenile Services Manager of Probation Laurie McGehee at $102,924 and Intensive Probation at Juvenile Services Cherokee Rhone at $95,052.
In a parish with around 233,000 people, the median household income in 2023 was $50,067, only a few thousand more than the Shreveport median income of $48,465. The poverty rate in the parish was 22.3%.
While the overall median household income grew by 5.2% from 2022, the poverty rate also increased by 1.6%. The parish also saw a 1.4% decline in its employed population. Only 95,184 were employed by the parish in 2023.
According to the data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27,900 of the jobs in the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area are government jobs or 16.7%.
