By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Parish Councilman David Cougle has not made it to two years as a public official yet, but has become perhaps the most polarizing person in remembrance on the St. Tammany government body in that short time period.
For standing up and voicing his concerns and comments on the majority of council matters, including controversy or not, Cougle has a large number of staunch supporters.
But at the same time, Cougle finds himself with just as many critics for his seemingly endless run of issues he has raised. That criticism includes many council colleagues, who don’t all agree that some matters are even worthy of attention, and believe the constant disputes are leading to a poor opinion of the council by the public.
Cougle found himself back in the middle of a dispute with council leadership in recent weeks after discovering that Parish Council Administrator Mary Burckell was given a $17,000 raise late in 2024, after being hired in May of ’24 at $110,000.
Cougle said he found the information when he was preparing a presentation for the Home Rule Charter Committee, something that shocked him since he knew the 2025 budget was passed late last year by the entire council, showing Burckell was being paid the $110,000.
Cougle claimed that knowing the parish “was broke,” and was trying to get the public to support a sales tax rededication to help solve some of their money problems, it was inconceivable to think the council should give someone a raise of that amount, especially since he believed the entire Parish Council was not informed about it.
However, the controversy that Cougle was certain had occurred was explained in a very different way by former Parish Council Chairman Arthur Laughlin when he was questioned about it, after Laughlin was the one who signed off on the raise late last year during his time leading the council.
“Not only was it OK for us to do this, but it is an awesome deal for the parish and is now saving us $117,000 a year compared to what we were paying the previous council administrator,” Laughlin said.
First off, Laughlin noted, the Parish Council chairman does have the authority to hire and fire certain key positions related to the work the council does, not requiring full council approval. And he said he did talk to a number of council members, with all council members having the opportunity to interview any of the candidates who applied for the job. However, Laughlin said he did not personally talk to Cougle about the plan for Burckell, other than the council knowing she was the pick to be hired.
“What gets me is that David Cougle is making this huge deal about the raise when he never understood why it was happening. And he never once picked up the phone and called me to ask about it,” Laughlin said.
Cougle said that when he began to learn about it early in 2025, and shared the information with several other council members, an e-mail was drafted to new Council Chairman Joe Impastato, asking for an explanation. But Cougle said they never received an answer.
Impastato said he must have missed the e-mail, one of hundreds he gets, but still defended the decision to hire Burckell, adding that the entire morale in the council offices is hugely improved now.
“Mary has done a truly spectacular job and the staff we now have there is great as well,” he said. “When the new council came in nearly two years ago the morale was the worst ever and there was extremely high pay among the staff.
“Now, we have reduced costs to run the council support staff, and the council has had enormous success in a lot of areas,” he added.
Laughlin said the raise for Burckell was part of the hiring package all along, and even with her raise, is saving a large amount of money for parish government.
“After H.R. went through all the applications, we decided we wanted to hire Mary, but since this was a new kind of job, she agreed to start at a salary that is lower than the low range in a pay study we had done for that position,” Laughlin said.
“After six months we felt like she was doing a fantastic job, so we followed through on the raise we had discused—$17,000 more,” he said.
Laughlin said that when he was council chairman, they also looked at the high salary of the former administrator before Burckell, as well as a second in-house attorney that was being paid a lot of money.
Laughlin said that a previous study done by consultants to find a low, mid and high range for any parish government job was considered when offering Burckell the job. The former council administrator, Gina Campo, was making $152,646 since she was a lawyer.
“But we didn’t think we needed to have a lawyer in the job, so we knew we could bring Mary in at a much lower salary. Even when we bumped her to $127,000, she is still making $23,000 a year less than Gina was—we are actually saving money in the budget,” Laughlin pointed out.
Cougle still was critical of the hire, contending the majority of the council was not informed about “a probationary period before a massive raise,” as he called it.
“There was strong consideration to not having a council administrator at all after the position became vacant, and simply using that extra money to hire staff,” Cougle added. “Ultimately we were told Mary was being hired for $110k—and I believe that was a large part of the reason there was a unanimous vote.”
Several council members were called and asked if they wanted to comment on the matter, but none wanted to publicly be involved in the difference between Cougle and others. However, one councilman did anonymously say that Cougle had an individual he had recommended for the job, who did get interviewed, but wasn’t hired as administrator, suggesting it might be a reason for raising questions about Burckell’s pay.
That individual recommended by Cougle was hired for a different council staff position.
“At the end of the day, Joe and I used business sense to make this decision,” said Laughlin. “As far as we are concerned, it’s an awesome deal for the parish that is saving money.”