Police Jury will have no new taxes on Nov. 21 ballot

 

Read their lips: No new taxes. Well, not for this year.

 

The Avoyelles Parish Police Jury thought long and hard about calling a new road/bridge/ drainage tax instead of seeking the renewal of the small property tax for parishwide drainage maintenance. In the end, the decision is to focus on the maintenance renewal and address the “big picture” needs later.

 

Allen Offner, of Foley and Judell bond attorneys, spoke to jurors in an informal informational meeting prior to jury committee meetings April 8.

Offner’s recommendation was to put any tax propositions on the Nov. 21 runoff election ballot. That ballot will be less crowded, less confusing and have a lower turnout -- all factors that favor a tax proposition. He advised against a parishwide road tax -- especially a sales tax -- and told jurors that  parishes with individual rural road maintenance districts are more successful in passing taxes to support work in that area.

 

Police Jury President Charles Jones said one option of increasing the drainage maintenance tax to provide more revenue for needed work was dropped after Offner noted that any change in the current tax would mean it would be a new tax and not a renewal.

 

Avoyelles Parish  Assessor Emeric Dupuy said that if the library and drainage taxes are renewed in November, they will continue uninterrupted onto the 2016 tax rolls. However, if they are defeated in November, “it’s over.” Win or lose, the two taxes will be owed for 2015 and be paid by early 2016. A new tax would not have time to be put on the 2015 tax rolls and could not be collected until the 2016 taxes are paid in early 2017.

 

Jurors had once thought the renewals would not have time to be put on the 2016 tax rolls  because the election was so late in the year. Dupuy said that is not the case.

 

After the decision was made not to consider any new taxes for the fall election, discussion turned to how to approach the public to provide funding for necessary improvements in the future.

 

Offner told jurors that about nine out of 10 tax propositions in “parish road maintenance districts” are successful.

 

“People are more receptive when it directly affects them,” Jones said.

 

Jones said the Police Jury will contract with Pan American Engineers -- who serves as the parish engineer -- to conduct a comprehensive, in-depth study of the parish road system. That study would also identify how to divide the parish into four or five road maintenance districts.

 

Offner told jurors that the road maintenance districts would not include municipalities.

 

“People in the municipalities won’t support the parish road tax,” Jones said, “and in most cases they would outnumber the rural voters in the district.”

 

The key factor in creating a successful road maintenance network will be creating districts “that will generate enough revenue to accomplish the mission,” Jones said.  

 

While several small road districts might have an advantage of using residents’ tax dollars closer to the residents themselves, they may be too small to raise enough money to do any meaningful improvements on those roads.

 

Jones said jurors seemed to like the idea of five road districts, with those districts cutting across Police Jury election districts and ward lines. The intent is to put rural communities with common interests together.

 

“For example, the communities across the river would be a district, the Hessmer-Belledeau area would be in the same district,” Jones said. “We wouldn’t be gerrymandering the road district boundaries.”

 

There is still some difference of opinion among jurors as to whether drainage improvements and bridges should also be included in any parish road district issues.