See Lafayette Mayor Josh Guillory's 2021 financial disclosure for Louisiana ethics board

Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory's most recent annual financial disclosure to Louisiana's Ethics Administration was supposed to shed light on his efforts to bolster his income while in office. But the report filed Friday raises more questions about the first-term mayor-president's side hustles than it answers.

Guillory's WM&N Equipment Rentals company, founded in August 2021, made headlines shortly before his return from rehab in August, after which he denied any impropriety or conflicts of interest at a brief press conference.

In public statements since then, Guillory and his wife Jamie, who is listed as the company's sole officer, have said the endeavor has not been particularly successful, with Jamie Guillory telling KLFY in an August interview the company was "pretty much breaking even." His office declined a similar interview with the Daily Advertiser shortly afterward.

"I can tell you right now, the money we have made off of this is not enough really to even pay our salary," she said.

The Guillorys have said publicly that Jamie Guillory is the company's majority owner and that it has two additional partners. In his filing to the Ethics Administration, Guillory noted that he and his wife owned 100% of WM&N in 2021, but he did not report any income from the business for last year.

Instead, Guillory reported earning between $5,000 and $25,000 from his private law practice in 2021 in addition to his $120,000 salary as mayor-president and $6,400 in payments from teaching two business law classes at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette last year.

Elected officials across the state are required to file financial disclosures to the Ethics Administration each year that outline their sources of income, debt obligations, ownership of businesses and property holdings.

In August, the Daily Advertiser reported that Guillory has continued to work as an attorney since taking office, and likely filed paperwork for at least one client during his stay at an out-of-state rehab facility this past summer.

The Daily Advertiser also found that dozens of Guillory's former clients had their criminal charges removed from court records since he took office in January 2020, likely through expungements that completely obscure what, if any, role he had in sealing those cases.

The first-term mayor-president also did not report his ownership of a second law firm − Acadiana Family Law, LLC − that he founded shortly after winning election in 2019 despite a requirement to list "any corporation, partnership, limited liability company, sole proprietorship, firm, enterprise, franchise, association, business organization, self-employed individual, holding company, trust or any other legal entity or person" on his annual financial disclosure.

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The same company, which has been kept in good standing with the Louisiana Secretary of State through required annual reports by Guillory, was also not reported on the mayor-president's financial disclosures for 2019 or 2020.

Guillory has repeatedly defended his decision to continue practicing law while serving as mayor-president despite a prohibition on outside work that "would interfere with or detract from" his elected duties in Lafayette's Home Rule Charter.

"It's something I'm passionate about," he said on his weekly call-in radio show on KPEL in August. "And I can provide a little more for my family, (so I) don't apologize for it."

Also notable in Guillory's latest financial report to the state Ethics Administration was his purchase and soon-after sale of a rental property in Orange Beach, Alabama, with his wife and brother-in-law this summer.

Real estate records show the trio paid $379,000 in June 2021 for a beach-front condo in the popular tourism destination, borrowing $300,000 in the process. Josh and Jamie Guillory then sold their interests in the unit to the brother-in-law for an undisclosed price in September.

It is unclear what, if any, profit or loss the Guillorys experienced from the condo transaction. Guillory did not respond to a request for comment through Lafayette Consolidated Government spokesperson Jamie Angelle Monday.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Lafayette mayor's 2021 financial disclosure raises questions