OPSB Stealth Tax hike robs voter rights to refill fund wrongly emptied

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist

Last Thursday night, the Orleans Parish School Board unanimously approved an increase in property tax revenue, agreeing to “roll forward” a millage in order to collect an extra $1.6 million next year for future school building repairs. In other words, for the second year in a row, the OPSB members raised your taxes without a public vote, violating the spirit, if not the letter, of Orleans Parish’s Home Rule Charter.

All property tax increases are to be approved by public vote, the City’s Constitution reads, yet the OPSB engaged in the typical sleight of hand in which so many parish boards and city agencies have engaged post-Katrina. When the IQ reform ticket advocated for a single assessor and a rational system of property evaluations, the idea was that through accurate valuations of properties and homes in the City of New Orleans, a broader tax base could collect the same amount of money at a lower millage rate. In fact, state law requires that when property assessments increase in a parish, the tax rate must “roll back” to collect the same amount of funds.

However, a supermajority of a parish school board, council, police jury, sheriff or other taxing authority can then vote to “roll it forward” back to its old, higher rate without seeking approval from the electorate. It’s a stealth tax increase without a public vote, and as a result, the city’s millage rate, which had fallen by nearly 50 points in the years after the post-Katrina reforms, has edged back up nearly half that amount. In other words, after a brief period when Orleans Parish property tax rates became competitive with St. Bernard and Jefferson, still higher but competitive, once again the skyrocketing millages have begun to price out younger residents and new commercial development out of the City of New Orleans.

No matter how noble the purpose of the roll forward might be, few New Orleanians would agree that the city’s roads, infrastructure, schools and governance are half-again better than they were 15 years ago. The Louisiana Weekly has supported many worthy property tax increases, but this newspaper has always maintained that if a parish agency wants more revenue, that agency should go to the voters in an election and ask for it. Let the electorate be the judge. They have to pay the price, after all.

Interestingly, the OPSB might have succeeded in getting the electorate to approve their tax increase. Revenue from their higher 4.97-mill tax is to be funneled into the school system’s School Facilities Preservation Program, a fund created six years ago by the Louisiana Legislature to maintain the system’s $1.4 billion in capital assets. The program dedicates a portion of the system’s annual revenue for maintenance and repair of school buildings. Last year, the revenue was roughly $30 million. That constitutes an additional $1.6 million to fix and improve New Orleans’ school buildings. Voters might have backed such a measure.

In calling such an election, though, the OPSB members might have been afraid that the electorate would realize that the board members had not completely kept their promise made in 2014. Six years ago, the board members pledged that the millage would be used to pay down bonded debt and start a capital repairs fund for schools. As bonds were retired over the years, the remaining tax revenue was earmarked to shift into the capital repairs fund. However, last year, the district shifted $10 million from that fund to a system-wide needs fund. The public promise to dedicate the millage to school facilities and bonds was not kept.

By diverting the $10 million, the capital repairs fund ended up underfunded. So, the OPSB “rolled forward” this millage last Thursday to make up the deficit, resulting in a tax increase for property owners whose assessments went up – better known as the majority of local homeowners, who struggle to hold on to their homes in the era of the COVID-economic recession. And the city’s voters never were allowed a say in the matter.

This article originally published in the September 21, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.