The Bossier Parish Police Jury blinked as well, but did so as part of what appears to be a plan to boost its image while deflecting from the fact that for years it overtaxed parish property owners.
Bossier Parish property owners were looking at some hefty tax increases this year. Republican Sheriff Julian Whittington as well as a fire district foisted some onto their constituent by refusing to roll back entirely tax rates as instigated in the Constitution. Every four years after reassessment, the total amount collected by a government on properties not improved and held by the same owners is not in the aggregate to change if assessments went higher, unless a taxing authority by a supermajority (in the case of a single executive like the sheriff, by his decision) refuses to allow a roll back in tax rates to compensate, which then means it can boost tax rates from that level all the way up to the one authorized by law.
Even with a roll back, unless assessed and sale values have decreased, with the property improvements and higher uses that have occurred in the previous four years within their boundaries entities will see more money coming into their coffers than previously. The intent behind the automatic roll back unless overridden is to prevent the vast majority of property owners who don’t use their property in and of itself for income generation through its lease or rental from having to pay more on a long-term asset for which they receive at present no capital gain, if any.
Within the past two months, among the parish-wide and municipal governments only Bossier City made a definitive declaration that it would roll back, which is done in a formal process by having a public hearing then a vote on rates that are rolled back. If contemplating rolling forward either partially or entirely, formal public notice must be given that the roll forward is contemplated and how much an increase would be if rolled forward entirely, prior to the hearing and vote override the roll back and to what level. The Police Jury as well as Bossier Parish School Board announced roll forward intentions.
But at the last minute the Board blinked, postponing the hearing with a vague promise that at the rescheduled one (using oddly different calculations as yet unexplained) might roll back or even reduce rates (which can be done any year). Days later came the Jury hearing and meeting, prior to which this space and another media outlet highlighted (and editorialized against) the possibility of a coming hike warned in the public notice.
Then, the Jury buckled, sort of. After the hearing at the meeting portion, jurors announced that a plan that would roll forward four of the five which actually would increase general alimony 6 mills for property outside municipalities and 3 mills for property in these (possible because this particular tax rested at just below the maximum authorized rate, unlike the others). However, it rolled back and then some the remaining one, the library millage, 2.19 mills to create an overall rate 2.13 (outside municipalities) lower at 13.82 overall that meant that anybody whose assessment for a property previously above the homestead exemption (not you, Butch Ford) that increased less than just over $30,000 actually would pay less for this year.
Republican Jury Pres. Philip Rodgers explained that presumed parish needs the areas of the other taxes – general parish operations, the health unit, roads, and corrections – kept increasing, but that that money could be saved from library operations. “We were able, when we took over the library, and we put our staff in charge, we saved a million and a half dollars. We’re giving that back to the people right now,” he crowingly alleged. “… what we did is, we deducted the library fund down because we had saved the money in the library fund, and we need money in roads and bridges. We need money in the general fund. We need money in the correction funds. We cannot use money in the library fund to fix a road.”
That sounds wonderful: the Jury, having steadily taken over the parish’s Library Board of Control over criticism this was questionable, if not illegal, justifies its action by doing such a great job of cutting costs it now can deliver a tax cut in library funding. That story makes voters want to run out and reelect the lot of them.
Except it isn’t true. Much more accurate would be the Jury’s action reassured victim taxpayers having been robbed for over a decade by it that it was going to stop the plundering. Understanding that begins with a review of financing over the past decade.
That was the year renewal of the tax nearly failed on Nov. 4, at its millage then at 7.57. Historically, the parish has used funds from it not only to operate libraries, but also to construct and maintain them as well as supply physical assets (books, etc.) for them. For some purposes, such as building out the new parish history center, it does so through a fund called the Library Certificates of Indebtedness fund, which issued essentially short-term debt. For constructing buildings and other assets, it has the Library Construction fund.
For that reason, the vessel in which the tax revenues land – the Library Fund, of which typically 95 percent or so of that input comes from the tax – as at least to 1996 almost every year it ran a surplus of revenues over expenditures, the Jury has siphoned funds to send other places for building purposes. Usually, these other receptacles didn’t hold large reserves, nor did the Library Fund.
But about two decades ago that began to change as after the Nov. 2, 2004 renewal of the tax, then set at 8.31. The surpluses typically became much larger and the reserves bulged. By 2013, the Library Fund reserve hit nearly $10 million, and perhaps this was a reason why the millage nearly failed at the ballot box as it seemed to be collecting money for no reason with the last major construction, the Benton branch, finished in 2006.
The next ten years continued the pattern. The year of the close call, the Library Fund had just under $7.5 million in it in a year where the Jury originally budgeted it for an excess of revenues over expenses of $423,000 – and planned on sending that to fund the new history center. Instead, an excess of $1,823,563 was delivered, which the Jury then took an additional $60,300. That amount wasn’t unusual, with surpluses the previous several years having been around that amount.
In 2015, the excess zoomed to $2,417,937. Once again, the Jury budgeted for a $423,000 excess and transferred that to the history center, so the reserve ballooned to over $12.3 million,
The Jury then tried something new for 2016, shoveling onto the Board a couple of jurors bringing its total membership to the maximum allowed by law, seven. The excess that year was $1,069,341 without a transfer, bringing the piggy bank up to over $13.4 million.
In 2017, the excess was $704,437, at which time the Jury began a practice that would last until 2023: budgeting for expenses to match revenues, even though healthy excess had been registered for many years. With no transfer that year, that grew the bankroll to over $14.1 million.
Transfers resumed in 2018 with a vengeance, which saw an excess of $591,459 and the fund balance sliding to about $11.7 million as a result of a $3 million reshuffle from the fund the Library Construction fund, largely moribund for several years and actually zeroed out at one point, intended to cover costs for a new central library eventually estimated to cost $8,715,977. In 2019, the excess was $721,887 and after another $3 million transfer the balance went to over $9.4 million.
In 2020, jurors adjusted the Board arrangement to shunt aside two citizen members, leaving just five of which two were jurors. That year the $4 million went to Library Construction Fund and with an excess of $246,388 left around $5.7 million bankrolled. Note by this time the amount transferred should have been enough to pay for the new library and then some.
But the dollars kept rolling in. For 2021 library financials registered an excess of $577,068 and with the $2 million transfer dropped the reserve to over $4.3 million. Not that the balance on the Library Construction Fund was hurting, peaking at over $9.2 million.
In 2022, the excess continued to increase from the post-pandemic interval to $1,020,499, but the transfer of $2 million brought the fund balance to approaching $3.4 million. A big tranche of spending went out from the Library Construction Fund, but with the transfer rested at almost $6.9 million. By then, another couple of citizen members of the Board had been muscled out, leaving four jurors with a solid majority.
Last year, the excess rivaled the 2014 amount, at $2,432,048, and was the first in several years that when the Jury initially budgeted it used the realistic strategy of assuming an excess. There was no transfer needed even as one last big tranche of spending went out on the central library, which opened earlier this year, leaving over $2.8 million in the Library Construction fund and $5.8 million in the Library Fund. The 2024 budget predicts about $600,000 more rolling in to that due to surplus.
That budget pegged the property tax receipts at $8 million, or more than $200,000 below 2023 actual receipts. Of course, that was before the roll back-plus, which would suggest a drop to $5.7 million, but that non-administrative expenses would jump up a nearly million bucks and actually put matters into a considerable deficit. Throughout the past decade, notably expenditures annually usually were within a couple of hundred thousand dollars of $7 million, except for last year when the Jury budgeted for around that amount but which came in closer to $6.4 million
So, to restate the recent history, up until the past couple of decades, given assessed values, the library tax’s level pretty much matched the whole of needs: operations, maintenance, and construction, as the reserves were never substantial in any relevant fund. However, since then tax revenues have been significantly higher than necessary that have produced operating surpluses typically significant in size compared to total revenues, even when siphoning for the new central library, which cost over $5 million less than the $14 million transferred into the Library Construction fund from 2018-22.
This raises some disturbing questions about the Jury’s motives over the years, but particularly in the last few. Years ago, it had become apparent the tax was taking in far more than needed, even to finish the new central library, so why did the Jury continue to let it go? A government can reduce its millages at any time, but has a prime opportunity to do so at reassessment, so why didn’t it in 2020 drop the millage in the dramatic fashion it did this year?
More disturbingly, why did the Jury stump for renewal of the tax only months ago at the continuing millage of 7.43 knowing it had taken in much more than necessary for years, only then to drop it nearly 30 percent months later? Indeed, the spring election was unusual, as in past years the Jury had put it on the fall ballot coinciding with national elections; maybe after the close call in 2014 it thought any publicity at all about the Jury takeover and a fat surplus might have riled enough of the public to vote down even a reduced level, whereas in a spring election with much lower turnout disproportionately parish and especially library employees would show up and with their affirmative votes increase chances of passage.
A cynic might argue that a reduction as a part of reassessment would soften the blow about the other taxes being rolled forward and allow publicity such as Rodgers propagated about paying not only a lower overall rate but less in amount. And that it presented a chance to spin the narrative about the Jury doing such a great job acting as the Board that taxes could be cut, justifying its takeover.
Which, in the light of recent history, is sheer nonsense. Regardless of whether there were no jurors on the Board or they held all the spots – and in fact now illegally all jurors are on the Board, as state law mandates a maximum size of seven – and anywhere in between the Library Fund routinely ran surpluses while expenses haven’t varied that much. Having all jurors as Board members had nothing to do with saving money and as a result generating a surplus: the system was set up to take too much from the people in the first place no matter who was in charge, leaving in its wake nearly $9 million in excess collected that for now has nowhere to go.
And that’s the real scandal here, that the Jury let this go on for year after year, knowingly extracting too much. It’s like the victim being told he should thank the perpetrator for stopping the victimization of him. Rather than be thankful, Bossier property owners should be upset that that they were taken advantage of by their jurors trying to spin this as salutary behavior on the Jury’s part.