Last week, the Bossier City Council met to deal with
the city’s property tax millages in the wake of reassessment. The statewide
version that occurs every presidential election year requires that local
government entities adjust their rates in response to that so that the total
amount paid in from that action remains the same, either down (if values
increase) or up (if values decrease). However, in another subsequent vote (or
proclamation, in the case of single executives that solely helm a government),
any rate below the maximum allowed may be adopted, although increasing the
adjusted rates (termed a “roll forward”) require a two-thirds supermajority to
enact.
The city
had courted controversy a month earlier when a ballot item to renew one of
the three taxes subject to elections (the fourth doesn’t require one and lasts
into perpetuity, as permitted by the Constitution) asked voters to increase the
maximum allowed over the previous 6 mill rate to 6.19 mills. Because of a reassessment
that showed a decrease four years earlier, the Council took the opportunity to
jack taxes up then, and convinced enough voters to ratify that increase in that
election.
But in the light of what appears to be a significant
increase through reassessment, at the last meeting the Council didn’t roll forward
and offered up reduced rates (all at their current
maximums), dropping its general tax from 5.76 to 5.57, its public safety general
operations tax from 8.61 to 8.32, it public safety largely salaries tax (the
one expiring and renewed) from 6.19 to 5.98, and its other public safety
largely salaries tax from 2.80 to 2.71, for a total of 22.58. Apparently somewhat
stung by criticism over asking voters for the higher renewal rate, after the
vote the Council instructed the city’s finance director to post
on its website (although in a manner difficult to locate these) rates on the
four items going back decades.
Of course, all members of the Council plus
Republican Mayor Lo Walker are up for reelection next spring, which must have
had something to do with eschewing any rolling forward. Although this publicizing
of past rates to aid their electoral chances might not exactly have turned out
the way they hoped, for while the table shows a decline in rates over time, despite
rising property values the aggregate rate is higher now than it was in 2008 and
through the first three years of this current term it was 23.36, or just a hundredth
lower than prior to 2008.
At least they saved taxpayers money, which the Board of
Commissioners for Cypress-Black Bayou couldn’t claim. That entity, which
governs the environs around these bodies of water and provides recreation
opportunities, draws its revenues from assessments on property owners around it,
fees from users, and from a property tax levied on most property owners in
Bossier Parish.
For years, despite pledges from commissioners and
executive director Robert Berry (who also serves as a commissioner in an
apparent contravention of the law and has been sued for that) to cut spending
in response to a persistent
budget deficit, with the district still losing money last year it put on
the ballot a tax increase from 1.56 to 3 mills. Voters soundly rejected that.
The five commissioners, however, aren’t elected.
Berry is appointed by the Bossier Parish Police Jury, Pres. Jerry Fowler by the
Bossier Parish School Board, Vice Pres. Mel Allen by the Bossier Levee District
(itself comprised of appointees), Sec. Gary Wyche by Benton, and member Walter
Bigby by Bossier City. They serve five-year terms ending Jul. 31 staggered
annually.
And
they got their revenge on taxpayers by rolling forward the rate in
unanimous fashion (although Wyche was absent) to stay at the maximum, which otherwise
would have declined to 1.51 mills. Fowler called the legally-required announcement
“misleading” because its wording that commissioners proposed raising rates past
the required lowering implied that a higher rate than current would be paid. “This
is not an increase,” from what voters had approved, he declared – wrongly.
Actually, the original item passed in 2014 was for
1.54, but the maximum became adjusted upwards to 1.56 as a result of the 2016
reassessment. And, it’s no comfort to homeowners on fixed incomes to see their property
taxes paid rise even slightly as a result of the Board’s vote, particularly when
the economy suffers from the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
Especially when the Board has so many other
options to tighten its belt, including reducing Berry’s six-figure salary that
sucks in more than one in ten cents in spending, or to pursue more creative
revenue-raising strategies (if not simply raising fees) and more efficient spending.
Only a small proportion of taxpayers ever use the facilities, so why must they cough
up more when they already pay
for more than half of expenditures?
Unfortuinately, this is the risk taken when
accountability becomes so indirect. Prior to its 2024 extinction short of
rejecting the tax if above 1.50 mills at renewal, all taxpayers can do now is
to complain to the various entities of elected officials as well as to the Levee
District appointees (and perhaps to the guy who appoints them, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards)
either to lean on their Board appointees to do the right thing (which the
unelected Levee District board members did by not rolling forward) or to replace
them.
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