Automatic tax cuts help LA fiscal restructuring

So, now the latest salvo against right-sizing Louisiana state government comes as a result conditions behind R.S. 47:32.1 perhaps meeting fulfillment, yawps that policy-makers safely should ignore while instead they use the potential situation to their advantage

That statute, which kicked in this year, triggers automatic individual income and corporate franchise tax cuts when the rate of growth in those collections exceeds the rate of growth in personal income for the three calendar years preceding the fiscal year in question, if the prior fiscal year’s taxes, licenses, and fees exceed the FY 2019 baseline by more than that rate of growth in personal income and the Budget Stabilization Fund is at 2.5 percent of the total state revenue receipts.

Calendar years 2021-23 saw an average growth of over 4.9 percent, fueled by the false economy of supercharged Washington Democrat debt spending, although the highest component of that would roll off for the CY 2022-24 calculation. The BSF in May had about $975 million in it and could collect in earnings a little more or with a surplus declaration maybe a lot more before the end of the year. Total taxes, licenses, and fees for FY 2024 were then forecast at $16.124.2 billion, the actual total of which could go higher with a future forecast. These levels are such that state officials think the roughly $400 million forecast in franchise tax and $4.6 billion in individual income taxes could be pared $100-200 million for FY 2025 as the cut would happen on 2026 returns, accomplished by reducing rates much like with local property taxes having rates automatically rolled back if the value of continually-held and not improved property in the aggregate in a parish increased in assessment value.

Landry response to Regents flap encouraging

The encouraging sign given by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry concerning Louisiana higher education isn’t really who he just tabbed as chairman of the Board of Regents. It’s how he replied to criticism by a former Regent in light of the reaction of other Regents to the appointment.

So far, Landry has had the chance to appoint only one member to the board that oversees in policy terms state higher education. That was Misti Cordell, who in real life works in health care administration but outside of that with husband has been active in Republican Party affairs and donors to GOP campaigns, including Landry’s. All other members received their gigs from Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards.

After only a few months on the job, Landry appointed her chairwoman, falling back on Act 491 of 2024 that gave the governor the power to do so – if he so chose; otherwise, the boards affected can continue to pick their own – for bodies where he appoints at least the majority of members not otherwise specified in the Constitution. This perturbed then-Regent T. Jay Seale III so much that he resigned days later – and not gracefully.

LNG pause that hit LA hardest based on fraud

Americans, but particularly Louisianans, have been made victims of a baldfaced lie by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden and his administration, with damage done to labor markets, commerce, and local governments.

Early this year, Biden with Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris announced his Department of Energy would halt all vetting activity regarding exportation of liquified natural gas to countries without free trade agreements with the U.S. In practical terms, this meant that DOE wouldn’t advance permits to do this, on which new export terminal construction hinged. This caught up a number of proposed facilities already being slow-walked by DOE since Biden took office, including two major ones in Louisiana nearing the finish line.

Biden and Harris provided the rationale for the decision as DOE needed a new study of the matter to take into account what he asserted were higher costs based upon catastrophic anthropogenic global warming assumptions (summing these up as the country facing “the existential threat of our time”). He alleged since the last LNG export study occurred in 2018, four years after the previous, that none others had been conducted.

Landry signals no help for alarmist projects

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry needs to take the next step and ensure Louisiana doesn’t throw away good dollars after bad as an extension of his Governors’ Coalition for Energy Choice.

Last week, Landry as co-founder of the group announced its initial formation. Ten governors, all Republicans, pledges in their states’ policy-making to ensure continued energy choice, minimize permitting and other regulatory barriers, limit expensive energy mandates, focus on affordability and reliability of energy infrastructure, and coordinate to manage positively energy resources and the environment. It is a natural outgrowth of his articulated “all of the above” strategy to maximize energy availability at minimal cost, which other members also have enunciated.

Which, of course, brought apoplexy onto climate alarmists, who perceive this sentiment as empowering the production of fossil fuels, contrary to their faith in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and neglecting government assistance to ultra-expensive renewable energy consumption as well as to fund research to make it only overly-expensive. That would include the $25 million Louisiana taxpayers already sank into something called H2theFuture, which snapped up $50 million in federal taxpayer dollars to start up.

Bossier schools pull back from tax hike ledge

The Bossier Parish School Board seems to have, at least temporarily, discarded its tin ear, perhaps coming to understand a series of questionable policy decisions have led to its adding another to its undistinguished record might have electoral consequences.

Earlier this year, the Board advertised that it would entertain rolling forward millage property tax rates levied by the Bossier Parish School District. During presidential election years in Louisiana parish tax assessors reassess property, but the Constitution mandates that the difference in values for property held and not improved throughout the period not increase the total amount of taxes paid for that group, meaning millage rates would be adjusted automatically unless a two-thirds majority wished not to do so, effectively raising taxes since that aggregate value had increased over the time period.

As published, it would have been more than a $4.2 million increase, or nearly 6 percent. Despite declining enrollments, costs have escalated because unfunded pension demands and post-employment benefits have skyrocketed over the past few years. Worse, BPSD already has one of the highest property tax rates of local education agencies in the state, so Bossier property owners have been hit harder than almost any others in the state.

Salutary panel recommendations need implementing

An underappreciated reform agenda sought by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry continues to bear fruit reorganizing the way that Louisiana makes policy regarding it energy and natural resources.

Last week, a panel established by Landry intended to review the state’s natural resource management issued its preliminary report. It drew the conclusion that this function suffered both from compartmentalization and incoordination, and recommended establishment of a steering commission that would provide overall policy leadership over at present disparate agencies such as the Departments of Energy and Natural Resources and Transportation and Development and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency. This Commission would have as members the secretary of DENR; his deputy that heads the new Office of Land and Water that is to manage all of the state’s energy and state-owned resources, ostensibly another DENR employee representing both its new Natural Resources Trust Authority – designed to provide a modernized financial security system for energy, and natural resources-related projects – and planning; ostensibly someone sitting on the CPRA Board or Authority to represent coastal interests; and a commissioner dedicated to a broad portfolio of planning for energy, overseeing infrastructure as it relates to resource management, and coordinating outside grant and other funding opportunities.

Rules to follow for successful LA fiscal reform

As it appears Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is gearing up to call a special session of the Louisiana Legislature later this year to tackle fiscal reform, he needs to draw from lessons of the past to ensure its success.

This perennial topic has become more urgent with plans to allow tax increases under his predecessor to fade away at the end of the current fiscal year. Ideally, reform puts the state in the posture that increased efficiency/decreased distortion in its taxing and spending structure prompts greater economic growth that causes higher tax revenues without raising marginal rates and targets better expenditures towards genuine needs.

Most important and basic, reform must undertake goals realistic to the political resources at hand. This doomed reform efforts in the Republican former Gov. Buddy Roemer era, where he aimed too high and missed.

Bossier tax hike looms funding anti-family agenda

Bossier Parish property owner tax hikes were led off by Republican Sheriff Julian Whittington, and waiting in the wings are Bossier Parish and the Port of Caddo-Bossier. But most consequentially of all, now stepping to the plate later this week is the Bossier Parish School District, ready to fuel an anti-family agenda by taking more from families.

Quadrennial property tax reassessments occur this year, and according to the Louisiana Constitution for continuous owners of unimproved property through the previous assessment the taxes derived from the aggregate value of their property parish-wide by default cannot change, although for some individuals their property values may rise and for others it may fall. This means the millage rates levied must change, going lower if in the aggregate values for these owners rose and going higher if these fell. (This doesn’t apply to new owners from the last assessment or if improvements were made to the property.)

However, a taxing entity may choose to “roll forward” millage rates to maintain their present level by a two-thirds or better vote for a plenary governing authority, increasing taxes on every property owner except those whose assessments for whatever reason in percentage terms decreased more than the percentage increase possible in the rate when rolled forward. Legally, an entity must hold a hearing prior to a meeting to do that, and the Bossier Parish School Board has scheduled that for Sep. 19.

Scrap over new Monroe bid law counterproductive

Picking a needless fight over a salutary public bid law isn’t something on which the Monroe City Council should waste its time.

Earlier this month, the Council put up for consideration essentially a repeal of Ordinance 12,225 enacted only three months ago. This changed the city public works contracting process by raising the dollar amount for Council approval of these to $250,000 and for associated materials and supplies to $60,000, in line with Louisiana’s Public Bid Law.

Less than a month later, two new Democrats joined the Council, with one replacing a defeated incumbent who had voted with the Council’s two Republicans to pass the ordinance favored by independent Mayor Friday Ellis. Both with the holdover Democrat last month passed an ordinance to reverse the ordinance, but Ellis vetoed that and with the two Republicans could sustain that.

Bossier sheriff strikes first with tax hike

Republican Bossier Parish Sheriff Julian Whittington may have been trying to be clever in splitting the baby on half, but his recently announced tax increase isn’t explained adequately enough to justify it, if it is justifiable at all.

Whittington last week kicked off what might become an orgy of tax increases in the aggregate on Bossier Parish property owners. This is the quadrennial reassessment of property values in Louisiana, where for properties held throughout the period by the same owner the Constitution sets as a default for the collective of these owners that the amount of tax paid in the aggregate be the same as it was four years earlier. That means the maximum millages that may be levied by taxing entities are changed to match, in most instances reduced to offset increased property values. To set a different level between this and the existing maximum millage, the entity must hold a public hearing prior to announcing that decision.

Thus, Whittington did – as an elected executive, he makes the call solo – where he announced that instead of allowing the automatic roll back from 14.9 mills to 12.7, he would roll it forward to 13.75, raising this year an estimated $1.5 million more. He justified this by saying existing full-time deputies could expect an across-the-board $2,500 hike in pay while new deputies would see their starting annual salary go from $42,600 to $44,100, or fifth to third among local agencies. This means, unless the value of an existing property declined more than about 7 percent, Bossier property owners will pay more in taxes to fund Whittington’s office starting this year.