MONTGOMERY — Multiple members of the Montgomery City Council at their Tuesday meeting scrutinized a $243,530 payment to a Louisiana private security company on March 10.
The Montgomery City Council considered terminating the contract at a previous meeting, but that resolution was withdrawn from Tuesday’s agenda. However, a notice of intent to terminate the contract has been issued by the city and a request for proposal was issued by the city seeking private traffic response services last week. The $1.45 million contract with TrafficServe was awarded by the city through a sole-source process and was not bid.
According to Montgomery’s open finance portal, the city paid $243,530 to Government Services Company LLC, or TrafficServe, for “traffic accident response” on March 10. A contract between the city and TrafficServe was signed in October.
“At the end of the day, we’re not going to move forward with this contract (with TrafficServe),” Montgomery City Council President Cornelius Calhoun said at Tuesday’s meeting.
TrafficServe is a civilian accident investigation startup that proposed handling minor accidents in place of Montgomery Police officers. The company would provide three cars for civilian traffic accident investigators and two additional employees for eight hours a day, five days a week.
Under the plan, civilian investigators would write up accident reports for minor accidents during that time and handle light traffic duties. There is no information about the company online besides news articles about their contract with Montgomery.
“One of the issues that we’re hearing is that the company out of Louisiana had not hired any individuals. They had not set up their website to hire anybody, had not purchased cars and we’re all just curious why that $243,000 went out on March 10,” Montgomery City Councilman Glenn Pruitt said during the Tuesday work session.
Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys said the payment “didn’t go out through our agency.”
“I was notified of it I guess at the same time that everybody else saw it and read about it. No invoices had been presented to my people in relation to that contract,” Graboys said. “They were basically going to basically set up and then they weren’t going to start invoicing us until they completed work and that’s what we were waiting for. I couldn’t tell you how they got paid or the methodology behind it. They never started.”
Johnny Crawford, procurement director for the city of Montgomery, said the payment to TrafficServe was a reimbursement for “costs that they’ve incurred to date.”
“This contract was awarded back in October 2025. Up to the point, when we were getting ready to terminate this contract, it states within the contract itself that once you issue a notice of termination for convenience, they’re able to seek reimbursement for the costs that they’ve incurred to date,” Crawford said at the meeting. “What they’ve been reimbursed for is all their administrative costs, their legal fees, the down payments on vehicles, uniforms that they’ve ordered and stuff like that. It’s a legal sufficient charges that they’ve incurred in an effort to perform this contract. Granted, they’re not here physically on the ground but administratively they’ve incurred costs that they’re entitled to.”
Marcus Toussaint is the co-founder and CEO of TrafficServe. Former Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins is also apparently involved in the company, according to emails between Montgomery officials and TrafficServe about the contract.
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