REAL ID REQUIREMENTS FOR FLIGHTS BEGIN WEDNESDAY 1B THE
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T H E A C A D I A N A A D V O C AT E.C O M
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T u e s d ay, M ay 6, 2025
MYRTLE PLACE MAKEOVER
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LAFAYETTE CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT
Audit details problems of previous leadership Boulet administration credited with cleaning up prior issues BY CLAIRE TAYLOR
Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Teachers and faculty check out their new lounge at Myrtle Place Elementary School in Lafayette on Monday.
A renovated and upgraded lounge greeted teachers at Myrtle Place Elementary on Monday, the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week. Parents raised $4,000 and worked in the lounge painting, upgrading appliances, doing plumbing work, hanging artwork and installing new furniture.
An independent audit of Lafayette Consolidated Government for the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31 suggests the administration of Mayor-President Monique Boulet continues to clean up problems created under her predecessor. The audit reveals 11 problems, down from 29 two years ago under then-Mayor-President Josh Guillory, who Boulet defeated in November 2023. She took office in January 2024. The Guillory administration disagreed with most of the 29 findings in 2022. Only two new minor problems are noted by the auditors with Kolder, Slaven & Company, both pertaining to federal program compliance under the Boulet administration. One is related to travel documentation; the other to failing to verify vendor qualifications. LCG is called out for a problem first noted in the 2023 audit under Guillory, a possible violation of the Home Rule Charter and legislation that prohibits spending city money for projects outside the city limits. Specifically, LCG has a grant-related fund in a consolidated cash account. In 2023, the account had a $26.9 million overdraft, most of it related to construction of detention ponds outside the city of Lafayette. The pooled cash account contains funds that have had “significant cash overdrafts”
ä See AUDIT, page 4A
Principal Ava Boustany Venable, right, welcomes teachers and faculty to the remodeled teachers lounge at Myrtle Place Elementary on Monday. Parent Blair Broussard talks about an original piece of artwork by Kali Picard as teachers get their first look at the newly renovated lounge at Myrtle Place Elementary.
Licensing boards may face changes Governor could have more appointment latitude
BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
Louisiana’s governor could soon have more latitude on who to appoint to 32 of the state’s occupational licensing boards and commissions, including those that oversee accountants, plumbers, nursing home administrators, contractors, psychologists and engineers, among a slew of other professions. Current law requires the governor to appoint some members of these boards from lists of candidates put forward by industry trade associations.
ä See BOARDS, page 4A
Trump offers $1,000 to immigrants who self-deport BY REBECCA SANTANA
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pushing forward with its mass deportation agenda, President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday that it would pay $1,000 to immigrants who are in the United States illegally and return to their home country voluntarily. The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release
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that it would also pay for travel assistance, and that people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government they plan to return home will be “deprioritized” for detention and removal by immigration enforcement. “If you are here illegally, selfdeportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” Secretary Kristi Noem said. “DHS is now offering illegal aliens finan-
cial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App.” The department said it had already paid for a plane ticket for one migrant to return home to Honduras from Chicago and said more tickets have been booked for this week and next. Trump made immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the United States illegally a centerpiece of
his campaign, and he is following through during the first months of his administration. But it is a costly, resource-intensive endeavor. While the Republican administration is asking Congress for a massive increase in resources for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department responsible for removing people from the country, it’s also pushing people in the country illegally to “self-deport.” It has coupled this self-deporta-
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tion push with television ads threatening action against people in the U.S. illegally and social media images showing immigration enforcement arrests and migrants being sent to a prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has often portrayed self-deportation as a way for migrants to preserve their ability to return to the United States someday, and the president
ä See TRUMP, page 4A
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