For different reasons, Bossier Parish voters should reject all four property tax renewals on Saturday’s ballot and tell the various powers-that-be to try again before it’s too late.
Bossier City has two such items on tap, both of which are identically dedicated to public safety operations and maintenance. Both are ten years in length starting in 2026, pitched at current levies (rolled back from previous authorized maximums, as property values have risen in recent years) of 8.32 and 2.71 mills that would generate about $8.6 million in annual revenue. These do not cover salaries, which are supplemented by a 5.98 mill measure approved at 6.19 mills in 2020.
The city was smarter this time around than back then. Four years ago, with that millage then set at 6.00, in essence it allowed for a future tax increase by the city asking for 6.19 and received negative publicity for that although the measure passed. Then as now, it occurred within a year of city elections; the next year the mayor and two city councilors got dumped by voters. So, this time the city pinned the renewals at the current rates, and hopes the assessment report from the parish that soon will be completed will show increased values and allow for a roll back later this year, just in time for elections next year.
In 2022, the latest date for which figures are available, the city spent net of charges for service $27.6 million on public safety, so the amount in question represents 31.2 percent of that kind of spending. That amount is a bit less than the $9 million the city spent on interest for non-enterprise debt – that is, money that goes to paying off a parking garage for a private concern in and out of receivership, a high-tech office building (and expansions around it), a money-losing (about $10 million so far) arena, playing fields and recreational buildings that only private organizations often of non-residents can use, and a duplicative roadway complete with statute extolling past and present politicians – and significantly less than the $11.8 million paid out that year to extinguish a portion of that debt, which stood at $214 million.
Meanwhile, at the end of that year the city sat on $37.6 million in the general fund, $30 million in its Riverboat Gaming Special Revenue Fund, and $18.9 million in the Public Health and Safety Permanent Fund. By ordinance (and in the case of the Permanent Fund, permission of the attorney general), the entire amounts could be used to fund current operations, meaning even missing a few years of these taxes could be offset without service reductions.
Therefore, city voters should send a message to their elected officials by voting negatively on the taxes. By law, the city could get a couple of more cracks at approval before expiration, and voting down these now could tell officials to get debt under control that would facilitate, among other things but perhaps the most crucial priority now a pay raise for public safety employees, where after that show of good faith would demonstrate the merits of future approval. For example, the city could sell the Brookshire Grocery Arena, revoke already-authorized tens of millions of dollars in unissued debt, and/or scratch from capital outlay plans what appears to be yet another attempt to foist an unneeded recreational center onto taxpayer’s backs.
Bossier Parish’s 7.43 mill renewal (rolled back from 7.73) for library operations also needs rejection, as a different message sent. That would collect $9.5 million annually, which is well above the 2022 expenditures of $7.3 million. In fact, there was so much excess that $2 million was shoveled from it towards construction of the just-opened Central Library. Both the Library Fund and Library Construction Fund had healthy balances of $3.4 million and $6.9 million (although estimated remaining costs for the new library of $5.3 million had yet to be realized).
Still, a year without this funding would leave a gaping hole in the library’s budget. Nor could the general fund provide much cushion, as most recently the parish has run a deficit in it after transfers to prop up other areas of parish government, leaving a balance at the end of 2022 of just $7.2 million.
Yet perhaps that’s the lesson the Police Jury needs to have delivered, which is the only known body in the state to appoint its own members to a library board of control, a legally questionable practice subject to a pending attorney general’s opinion (which over a month ago was described as nearing completion, but perhaps timed so that it comes out after the election?). Absolutely unambiguously it violated R.S. 25:214 by appointing more than seven members to the Board and allowing them to meet in that fashion and in the past also violated R.S. 25:215 by appointing for several months Parish Administrator Butch Ford as head librarian, when the law stipulated that this officer had to have certifications that Ford lacked.
Bossier Parish police jurors have shown they are a hard-headed lot and more than willing to break the law when it gets in their way. Parish voters telling them to go back to the drawing board by rejecting the renewal might be the only way to make them more accountable and stay within the law, which then would merit future renewal.
Finally, the Cypress Black Bayou Water Conservation and Recreation District renewal of 1.54 mills that most parish voters will have to assess also deserves defeat. Unlike with the other measures where elected officials can show behavioral changes that induce later voter acceptance, this one may be beyond any hope.
This levy actually is a slight decrease from the 1.56 authorized last time and currently assessed, putting it at the level of the previous reauthorization in 2014. Undoubtedly, setting it at that is a reaction to the debacle in 2019 when district board – comprised of five unelected commissioners appointed by various Bossier governments – basically wanted to double the tax five years early, and got drubbed at the polls as most but not all of parish residents are subject to the tax and 97 percent don’t own land regulated by the district.
The new version, which would last from 2025 to 2034, would raise a bit under $1.5 million annually, which would be around three-quarters of its total 2022 revenue haul. Debt service for the 2025-27 period, which is when all its debt will be extinguished, runs just over $1 million. Other expenses, which are all cultural and recreational in nature, net of charges for services cost $1.2 million. About five-eighths of those charges come from fees charged to users of the park area and waterways, and around three-eighths come from landowners around the waterways who have to pay mandatory fees.
However, the fact remains that few of the 97 percent ever visit the area (which they have to pay to enter whether they already paid property taxes for it) and it has strayed very much from its original intent as a water management entity. In fact, in its entire history stemming back to 1958 it only ever has made one water sale, which otherwise could be a major source of revenue, as its management has focused on running it like a park.
Almost all of its expenses come from its recreation activities, even though those tied to landowners make up a tiny portion of that, who end up subsidizing others’ recreation. Most expenditures would go away, and the need for property tax subsidization, without its acting like a park.
So, don’t let it act like a park, at least as it currently is governed. It should return to a basic duty of water sales, which has low expenses, and user fees for boat launching or even beach usage should be enough to pay for minimal staff, and chuck the rest of its activities. Better, have the state adopt it as a park by extinguishing its debt and taking it into the state park system, and conduct water sales through the Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Covenants can be put on landowners but there would be no need for them to pay fees.
Or for most of the rest of the parish’s residents to pay the property tax. Voters can kickstart this conversion process of going from a patronage sinkhole with largely unaccountable governance too willing to chase grandiose schemes on the taxpayer dime to focusing on state objectives with streamlined management, if not operations, by rejecting its taxpayer funding, and again in November when it would be guaranteed to try again less than two months before loss of this revenue.
Bossier voters just need to remember one thing when they hit the polls on Apr. 27 – no, in quadruplicate.
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