AMITE - After some confusion about what the proposed budget meant for the Amite Police Department, the City Council approved the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

That budget would bring the Amite Police Department down to a $2.8 million budget rather than the $3 million proposed.

"I was making sure we didn't get cut to the amended budget because we wouldn't be able to hire anybody else, we would've been crippled, we would have just had 10 guys, we wouldn't have been able to get up to 4 guys on a shift, go up a detective and so on," Police Chief Lendrick Francois said.

Chief Francois said he feared a deeper cut that would've left just two officers per shift.

"That was my main concern, because if we wouldn't just have enough money in our budget to just get two guys a shift, it wouldn't have been great out here in a city the size of Amite," Francois said. 

The confusion came from carryover money, making the budget look larger than it was.

“I think something got misconstrued, and what we presented in 2025 and what we amended, was to relinquish some money to the city because we didn't have all the manpower we needed. As a result, the money was returned to the budget, which we then presented in the new budget. That's what the problems were showing, that we had an influx of $400,000 in our budget, but that was not true,” Francois said. 

Even with the approval, Francois says there were losses.

"We did lose one vehicle a year, we did lose one guy, so instead of getting two vehicles a year, we’re going to get one for now and we did lose a patrol guy,” Francois said. 

Chief Francois said he plans to expand the department in the coming years.