Three months after voters in East Baton Rouge Parish defeated an additional 2 cent hotel occupancy tax that would have generated $2.6 million a year to be split 50-50 between Visit Baton Rouge and the Raising Cane’s River Center, lawmakers this session will consider a bill that would resurrect the tax increase and potentially bring it back before voters later this year.
Unlike the tax proposal defeated 51% to 49% last fall, under which the city-parish was the taxing authority, Senate Bill 83 by Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, gives Visit Baton Rouge authority to levy the additional tax. It would be imposed on hotel rooms in East Baton Rouge Parish, though not in Baker, Central Zachary or the newly created North Baton Rouge Economic Development District, which is funded by its own hotel occupancy tax.
Visit Baton Rouge has legal authority to impose a 4 cent occupancy tax, but state law requires legislative approval for any tax increases. Barrow’s bill does not specify whether voter approval is also needed for the tax increase; and, in fact, is ambiguous on the issue. But Louisiana State Senate staff attorney Mike Bell, who drafted the bill for Barrow, says existing state law requires a vote of the people before the additional 2 cents could be imposed.
Barrow says that is her understanding of the bill as well, and adds that her purpose in sponsoring the proposed legislation is not to try to circumvent the will of voters last fall, but to give Visit Baton Rouge another shot at making a case for why the tax increase is needed.
The agency has said the $1.3 million a year it would receive from the tax would go to an incentive fund to help lure attractions and events to the market, while the Raising Cane River Center’s $1.3 million would fund badly needed improvements and enhancements to make the facility more competitive.
“Visit Baton Rouge didn’t do a good job explaining to the public last time what this was really about and the fact that it doesn’t affect local taxpayers,” Barrow says. “I really believe there is an economic development component to this that people didn’t understand so when they asked me to sponsor it I said I would.”
Visit Baton Rouge CEO Paul Arrigo says the tourism agency is supporting the bill, as it did the tax measure last fall.
“We’re all about bringing business here,” he says. “This would help us do that.”
—Stephanie Riegel
