The sparring between Parish President Kevin Davis and Sheriff Jack Strain over who is responsible for funding the jail continued late Thursday and into Friday with no end in sight.

Thursday afternoon, Davis took another jab at Strain when he sent a letter to State Legislative Auditor Steven Theriot, requesting he look into jail spending.

Strain almost immediately faxed his own letter to Theriot, denying all wrongdoing.

Traffic backs up on U.S. Highway 190 Friday afternoon along the stretch between Northshore Boulevard and U.S. Highway 11. (Staff Photo by Suzanne Le Breton)

Strain has stated the Parish Council needs to allocate $2 million a year to defray the cost of running the jail.

Davis said the quarter cent sales tax approved by voters in 1998 covers the parish’s legal obligation for funding the jail and Strain isn’t going to get any more parish money.

In a letter written Wednesday, Davis told Strain if he needs more money he would have to find it elsewhere.

He further questioned how he could be facing a deficit in the jail fund after the sales tax revenue has jumped from $4.1 million in 1998/1999 to $5.4 million in 2008/2009.

Davis’ question is what has Strain been using the money for, and after reviewing the Sheriff’s Office’s financial records from 2001-2008, Davis said he has reason to believe Strain has been haphazardly transferring substantial amounts of money from the dedicated jail fund into the Sheriff’s Office general fund and into a capital outlay fund, which Davis believes was used to build the new Sheriff’s Office complex in eastern St. Tammany.

Strain denies using any of the sales tax money for anything but jail operations. In his letter to Theriot, Davis references a newspaper article where Strain reportedly admitted to spending $3.2 million of the jail sales tax to build the new administrative building in Slidell.

Strain said he did not say that. Ironically, Strain has denied using any of the jail sales tax on anything but jail expenses.

In his letter to Theriot, Strain claims that the reporter made an “inaccurate assumption.” He added in the letter, “I can tell you, however, that I have absolutely not used sales tax dollars for anything but the operation of the parish jail.”

In turn, Strain questions, the parish’s spending of millions of dollars of tax money dedicated to streets and drainage on projects, which Strains considers to be against what was intended when the tax was levied, including a walking path in Camp Salmen, a bridge on the Tammany Trace and a state-owned highway.