Landry implements crucially-good ITEP reforms

Given the bad hand Louisiana’s Constitution dealt him, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry did his best and largely successfully to fix problems created in the past few years with the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program.

ITEP reflects a constitutional power defined by the mostly gubernatorial-appointed Board of Commerce and Industry and the Department of Economic Development which allows it to exempt manufacturing firms from property taxes from value added to property used for discrete projects that create new or expand operations. However, the Constitution vests the final power in the hand of the governor whether to approve whatever emerges, so he can create the conditions for acceptance through an executive order, in essence saying that unless requests forwarded to him meet standards he articulates, he won’t approve these.

Historically, such supervision was minimal, leading to almost any project within the constitutional boundaries meeting approval, until Landry’s predecessor Democrat John Bel Edwards radically changed the rules, and for the worse. Understanding the negative impact begins with acknowledging that ITEP exists because of Louisiana’s confiscatory property tax rates insofar as these apply to business.

Changes only can improve LA public defense

Opposition to changing governance of Louisiana’s indigent defense from an appointed board to a gubernatorial designee generated more heat than light and shouldn’t derail an improvement to a system as yet never quite fixed.

SB 8 by Republican state Sen. Mike Reese may end up the most controversial bill of the Legislature’s Second Extraordinary Session of 2024. Its initial hearing dragged on for hours with support voiced for it by State Public Defender Remy Starns and a few others, but most of the time was taken by opponents, many connected to public defense.

The bill would remove the Louisiana Public Defender Board from policy-making, leaving only an advisory role, transferring that to the public defender. Rather than he be an appointee of the Board, the governor with Senate confirmation would make the appointment, for two years. This would put contracting and chief district defender hiring solely in the hands of the public defender, among other things, rather than by the Board which currently has five gubernatorial appointees (from each appellate district), four from the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and one each from the leaders of each state legislative chamber, serving overlapping four-year terms.

Data point to Summer EBT as unneeded in LA

Louisiana’s political left has a full-court press on to try to score political points over the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry Administration decision not to dole out more cash to lower-income households with children – all the while ignoring data that supports that decision.

Liberal politicians and special interests have criticized the choice not to participate in the Summer EBT program, which gives cash benefits of $40 a school-aged child for three months in the summer. It’s estimated that it would have shoveled $71 million to state families out of federal monies.

Of course, that attitude acts as if this is free money, when in fact Louisiana taxpayers will bear the costs through their federal taxes, an increase in federal debt that they eventually will have to pay back with interest, and/or with a reduction in services elsewhere. Further, plenty of other programs exist to address food needs, including a couple geared specifically toward school children in the summer that operate far more efficiently than the Summer EBT design, as well as more general programs that cover the same clientele base, principally the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that in Louisiana pays a family of two $535 a month.

Over execution, Hollywood may help LA save cash

As with most candidates for governor last year, the winner Republican Gov. Jeff Landry disappointed on the issue of Louisiana’s Motion Picture Investors tax credit, but maybe he’s hit on a less-direct way to skin a cat over the issue of expanding capital punishment options.

The film tax credit is notorious for its waste of taxpayer dollars, costing the state typically hundreds of millions of dollars annually with only a fraction returning to the treasury in the form of income taxes on those employed in production, sales taxes for good related to filming, and the like. It functions as a form of corporate welfare, which largely goes into the pockets of out-of-state interests, that no other industry in the state enjoys to that degree. The latest, most optimistic statistics available show it returns 23 cents on the dollar while costing $13,300 for each job, mostly part-time, “created.”

Gubernatorial candidates, if anything, with the exception of GOP ex-state Rep. Richard Nelson, campaigned in favor of the giveaway. That included Landry, even though his ally now Speaker of the House Republican Phillip DeVillier had tried to amend the legislation last year to extend the program to gradually wean the state off it.

Tax fatigued voters may doom Bossier renewal

In April, most Bossier City residents will be solicited to slap upon themselves again a large amount of property taxes, and to a smaller degree parish residents outside of municipalities face the same. As a result, chances are good that at least some portion of current taxes will be rejected.

All of Bossier City, Bossier Parish, and the majority part of both encapsulated in the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District have cued up property tax renewals on the Apr. 27 ballot. The State Bond Commission last week approved for the date a pair of city levies for 8.32 and 2.71 mils for public safety, the parish levy 7.43 mils for the library system, and the district levy of 1.54 for general operations and capital outlay.

The four are for ten years, although the district’s starts in 2025 while the other two wouldn’t renew until 2026. If all were approved, city property owners with a $225,000 primary residential property within the district boundaries would reestablish onto themselves $350.88 annually in property taxes; those not in the boundaries would add back $327.78; and outside a municipality in the district would sign on again to $134.55, and those only in the parish would re-up to $111.45. (Parish Administrator Butch Ford’s shack, which permits him to evade legal prohibition against his employment, is valued so low, below the homestead exemption, that his taxes paid won’t change regardless of the outcome of the parish and district votes.)