Saturday, Caddo Parish officials
are wanting
voters to approve both parish-wide measures on the ballot. The public needs
to resist the blandishment.
One is a renewal for 20 years of
a 1.75 mill property tax used for capital items. Even though the parish sits on
reserves that exceed
greatly the projected over $23 million this would draw, in theory it’s
defensible to have this revenue stream available. Many of the projected uses
listed by the parish are worthy, although some represent non-critical enhancements
that financial prudence dictates should not be financed by debt when you have
that choice.
But two disturbing aspects of the
requested renewal should disturb voters. One is the failure to ask for a rate
that represented any rollback from the expiring rate. Louisiana’s Constitution
dictates that whenever property reassessments that occur every four years
during the years of presidential elections that, unless a governing authority
acts otherwise, property tax receipts remain flat overall by having millage
rates decrease if necessary.
While the tax has come down from
4.40 mills, it has stayed at 1.75 for the past few years. Given its superior financial
position, the parish should have asked for a lower level in order to allow the
people to keep more of their money. That it didn’t weakens the citizenry’s
confidence in that it can act as a wise steward of the resources from this
levy.
Perhaps worse is that Caddo
recently signed an agreement
to fork over millions that will be recycled into providing financing for an
experimental automotive startup at the former General Motors location. While
parish officials insist it is a beneficial, low-risk deal, they forget that it
simply is not government’s job to use taxpayer resources on things not related
to basic government purposes. Again, this poor judgment reminds voters that a diet
may be necessary to get a majority of commissioners’ minds right on this basic
concept.
Thus, a vote against the renewal
is in order. The parish has plenty in reserve, and perhaps defeat would prompt
it to come back next year with a more modest and appropriate proposal.
Yet it seems getting minds right
is a need that extends beyond a basic understanding of the purpose of
government. The other ballot item asks to extend terms limits from three to
five consecutive. This appeared as a fallback position to discussions earlier
in the year first to eliminate them entirely but this could not gain majority
commissioner support, then to offer elimination on the ballot in competition
with the extension, then to just place on it the extension.
While keeping limits avoids the
electoral consequences of doing away with them, lengthening them to the point
where they almost are meaningless resurrects the case against no limits. The
argument for them are that after too long representatives become too focused on
institutional rather than public needs and become increasingly able to use
resources of their offices to give themselves electoral advantages over
challengers. Thus, refreshment at regular intervals reminds them of the object
of their service and that this should not be seen as a career that disconnects
them from the community.
One argument used against them
asserts that forced turnover loses experience and knowledge needlessly. But
this operates on the conceit that the official is significantly more capable to
govern than any other willing member of the community, so that replacing him
forcibly without cause (i.e. voter rejection, which presumably signifies
inferior performance) represents a reduction of quality detrimental to the
community. This is sheer nonsense; a number of willing folks in any district
are more than capable of matching or exceeding anyone on the Commission
presently. And just how much more helpful experience and knowledge can one get
after 12 years, especially when if someone can't get up to speed on the position
in the first year this shows he didn’t have the ability necessary to serve in
the first place?
The other is that it deprives
people of “choice” with an artificial disqualification of long-time incumbents
from the ballot. But how really limiting is that when you have a community full
of willing and capable individuals out there? Given the benefits of refreshment,
they more than compensate for the extremely small attenuation of choice. So
there’s no need to extend limits. And, it’s helpful to keep in mind
that the limits are not lifetime, so a commissioner who really feels compelled
to serve can sit out a term and then try again.
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