Baton Rouge mayor fires two top administrators, Metro Council members say

East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome has fired two top administrators, according to several members of the Metro Council.

Council members said they were individually told by members of Broome’s administration on Thursday that Purchasing Director Kris Goranson and Environmental Services Director Rick Spear had been fired, Racca said. 

Broome’s administration declined to confirm the two firings in a statement Friday. 

“At this time we are considering administrative changes but we are unable to comment on pending or active personnel matters,” city-parish spokesman Mark Armstrong wrote. “City-Parish is committed to ensuring all services continue efficiently and uninterrupted.”

The news came as a surprise, Council members Jennifer Racca and Laurie Adams said. 

“Both of those guys have been very responsive and have worked well with District 12,” Racca added. 

Council member Cleve Dunn Jr. also said he had been told of the firings. 

Council member Aaron Moak said he wasn’t told why the pair were fired and asked Broome’s administration for more transparency on the matter.

“I feel like city-parish has lost two great employees, and I do think there needs to be more discussion and reasons into what exactly happened,” Moak said. “These are two employees who were very straightforward with us in every discussion we had since I was elected. They were two of the most transparent people I had discussions with.”

News of Goranson’s firing broke days after his department was criticized during a Wednesday Metro Council meeting for making a mistake on a request for proposal that angered several bidders for a street rehabilitation project. 

Goranson’s firing had nothing to do with the events at the council meeting, and he was released due to a series of events over the last several months, Racca said she was told by Broome Chief of Staff Dante Bidwell.

As purchasing director, it is Goranson’s job to manage the hundreds of millions of dollars of city-parish contracts and other procurements. Speer, meanwhile, oversees for environmental compliance — most notably, the parish’s troubled stormwater system.

That system has long been out of compliance with federal rules, and the parish is under threat of legal action by state and federal regulators. Over the past few months, the question of how to raise millions of dollars to pay for improvements to fix the system has been a central debate in parish politics.

The firings of Goranson and Speer come several months after city-parish Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Kelvin Hill resigned in October amid criticism of the Broome’s administration for the handling of a proposed stormwater utility fee. Deputy Parish Attorney Bob Abbott also announced he was retiring in early November shortly after receiving criticism for his handling of the stormwater fee rollout. 

“Im very concerned about the turnover in the administration,” Adams said. “The institutional knowledge, the time, the efficiency that is lost when staff turns over is difficult. If changes make improvements and in the next three, four months, we see things are operating better, that’ll be good, but my concern is when you lose critical staff members you lose ground.”

This is a developing story.