Police Jury hears concerns over road district plan

   Taking a position that it’s better to do something right than to do it quickly, the Avoyelles Police Jury decided to have at least one more public hearing to consider other options to improve and maintain the parish roads and bridges.

   The “Four District Ward” design emerged from Thursday’s 90-minute meeting a bit beaten up but still a front-runner as the way to obtain tax revenue to finance significant road work projects in the unincorporated areas.

   Other suggestions were to try once again for a parishwide tax rather than cut the parish into subsections and to use the current election districts as the road tax districts.

   Police Jury President Charles Jones said jurors “would love to pass a parishwide tax. It would make this process much easier. But we have tried that and failed.”

    Jones said conversations with other parish officials around the state have found that very few parish governments have been successful recently in passing any new taxes. Getting existing taxes renewed has been challenging enough.

    “It’s not just here in Avoyelles,” he added. 

  Jones told the crowd that the Police Jury was going to take its time, gather additional insight and comments from the public, and continue to study all the facts and factors involved in creating a system that would serve the public and be successful.

   “We could rush this through, but that would not benefit anybody,” he said.

 

   A major shortcoming in the current proposal was hammered home early and frequently in the public hearing -- the fact that the Police Jury has not determined the number of parish roads and miles of road in each of the four proposed taxing districts.

  The taxable property value is known, and the amount of taxes that could be generated by a millage tax can easily be computed, but the missing fact could be a deal-killer or deal-maker in convincing the public that the plan is fair.

  One man pointed out that there could be significantly more miles of road in one district than in another if they are divided solely along the old ward lines. However, the taxing ability of the districts using those lines could result in the high-miles district having less money to operate with than a low-miles district with more taxing capacity.

  That comment was countered by reminding the standing-room-only crowd that each district would determine the millage tax necessary to take care of the roads in their district.

  Which brought the conversation back to the initial concern: There are no figures on how many miles there are in each district, so choosing a millage rate for a tax proposition could result in too little or too much tax revenue even if it were successful.

   As the public hearing was being adjourned, jurors approved holding another public hearing at 4 p.m. March 3. 

   “Each juror needs to know how many miles of road will be in each district,” Jury Vice President Kirby Roy interjected.

   Juror Marsha Wiley said she appreciated the hard work that has been done in putting together the four-district plan, but said she had to “play devil’s advocate” and present a few other options.

   She said her constituents in Ward 1 are concerned that their tax dollars will be spent on roads other than those in that ward.

  Jones said a road district commission, composed of the police jurors whose districts are in the road district and citizens from those wards, would determine how the road tax would be spent. The commission would present their decision to the full jury for approval, because state law requires the jury to approve any spending of public tax funds.

  Jones said he would see no reason why a road district board’s recommendation would be rejected by other jurors “because I would expect the same courtesy of approving recommendations of my road district commissioners.”

  Wiley said Ward 1 alone generates about $73,000 a year from a 10-mill School Board tax. She also said she has been told that the ward has about 140 miles of parish roads.

   Jones said there are about 400 miles of parish roads in Avoyelles Parish.

 

  Wiley recommended allowing the road districts to be the Police Jury election districts, which cross ward lines. She said it is already confusing enough for voters with various election and taxing districts, so the jury could avoid creating one more.

   Jones pointed out that Juror Mark Borrel, whose district is mostly inside the Marksville city limits, could end up with a lot of tax revenue and nowhere to spend it, “assuming he could get it passed,” under that plan. However, he said it was an option the jury can consider.

    Wiley said jurors could be given the option of combining their district with another.

   One problem with that recommendation would be the likelihood that the election district lines would change following the 2020 Census, putting some voters/taxpayers in one election district while paying taxes in the previous configuration. That could possibly be avoided if the description of the tax district stipulated that the road district lines would change as the election district lines change.

 

   Several mayors attended the meeting to voice their objections to the municipalities being included in the road tax districts without an agreement to allow municipalities to share in the tax proceeds.

  Mansura Councilman Gaon Escude asked directly how the tax money would be divided between addressing needs in the incorporated areas and road projects in the unincorporated areas.

   District Attorney Charles Riddle was also direct, replying “Each municipality will not receive funds from a parish tax.”

   He said state law is clear on that point. Taxes passed in a municipality are used to pay for the operating costs of that municipality.

   “When you are talking about parish taxes, you are talking about spending the tax in the unincorporated areas.”

   Bunkie Mayor Mike Robertson said he questions whether it is constitutional for the Police Jury to impose a tax on a group of people -- those living in municipalities -- which provides no benefit to them.

   “It happens everyday,” Juror Henry Moreau answered. “If I shop in Bunkie, I pay sales tax to your city, but I live in Simmesport and don’t get any benefits from that sales tax.”

    Jones noted several times that the four-district plan “is only a plan. This is one option. If there are five options, we will look at all five.”

  Jones said he finds it “embarrassing” when the Police Jury has to tell one of the towns that it cannot help with a drainage, bridge or street project.

  “We are going to have to be creative in finding out how we can help the municipalities,” Jones said.

  He said a plan that omitted municipalities was considered, but the taxable value of property would be so low that it would require a high millage to generate enough tax dollars to address the road improvement needs.

   Roy also tried to assure those in attendance that this meeting was a beginning and not an end of the road district issue.

  “This is just a plan,” Roy said. “Maybe there are other plans. Maybe we should have three districts, maybe five. This may not be the route we need to take, but it is a plan. It’s a start.”

   Roy said everyone in Avoyelles Parish is affected by the condition of the parish roads, even if they live in a municipality.

   If they don’t drive on a parish road, they probably have friends and relatives who do, he said.

  “And our school buses travel on these roads,” he continued. “These roads are very dangerous, and our children ride on these roads every day.”