This is a pro bono effort by one individual citizen and taxpayer of Tangipahoa Parish to share information about the proposed new school board taxes with the rest of the citizens and property owners in our parish.
The issue
There’s an old saying that some people have champagne taste, but a beer wallet.
That may be the case with the Tangipahoa Parish School Board. The school board is proposing significant changes in the school system in an attempt to resolve a decades old lawsuit over integrating the public schools of the parish.
Resolving the lawsuit is a laudable goal especially when one has the threat of a Federal Judge pressing the school board for resolution.
Cost of resolution
The issue is not whether the lawsuit should finally be resolved, but at what cost. Even a Federal Judge should take into account the ability of a defendant to pay. Of special concern should be the impact of the costs on the parish’s economy in recession and what may become a depression.
Transparency lacking
I forwarded several detailed questions about the tax portion of the school board’s plan to the Superintendent, the Chief Financial Officer, as well as my school board member. My board member said he didn’t have the information and the CFO was unwilling to answer my questions in writing (A practice with which I became indoctrinated in law school.).
Obviously, the information I requested was easily available; otherwise the board could not have made the submission to the judge with the dollar amount of the revenues to be derived from the new taxes.
Findings
Failing, as of this writing, to get the specific details needed from the school board, I found some information from other sources that were available to me.
In order to pay for the school board’s plan expenditures, the board proposes raising the Ad Valorem Property and Sales and Use taxes in the parish. Based on media reports, the millage increase will be between 29.5 and 29.8 mills.
Also, from media and other reports I determined that the current school millages paid in each district with the exception of the 4.06 mills “alimony millage” that will be subtracted from the 29 plus mills. (“Net New Millage” in chart attached.)
Property Tax Impact
Because we do not currently have a uniform system of school taxes in our parish, the actual property tax millages will have varying impact (increases or, in one case, decrease) on property owners in the seventeen individual taxing districts.
The current (2008) millages in each district were obtained from the website of the Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish. Included in the property tax millages are both parish and municipal taxes where applicable.
To see how this tax specifically affects you see click on the chart here: tax-impact-table
Sales Tax impact
Getting specific details of what will be taxed by the additional one cent sales tax has proved elusive.
Apparently, under existing state law a new bureaucracy, appointed by the school board, will propose the new tax and administer the revenues. I say apparently, because the legal citation in the draft submission to the judge (Posted on school board’s website.) is not correct.
Danny Ridgel, my school board member, advised that the tax would be imposed on “the items that now fall under the taxable items as per state law.”
The existing legal authority that the board appears to be using for the additional tax specifically exempts food for home consumption and prescription drugs from being tax.
The state constitution prohibits state (not local) sales taxes on utilities (electricity, natural gas and water). Therefore, I assume that the additional tax will be imposed on utilities in addition to the traditional items subject to a Sales Tax.
It is also assumed that the new sales tax will be imposed parishwide, including each municipality. That will mean, for example, that those who live, work or shop in Hammond will pay a 10% Sales Tax if the tax passes the referendum in October.
If you found this information of interest feel free to share it with other interested citizens, renters and property owners in our parish so that they might cast an informed vote on October 17.
Disclaimer
If any of the information presented above is inaccurate the fault lies with the failure of the school board and school officials to make the correct information available. The board and its staff are hired by the taxpayers of our parish to manage our public schools in an honest, open, and transparent fashion which they don’t seem inclined to do.
C.B.
1
CB
7:13 am
