While the BREC administration decides whether to push forward with its challenge to the property tax assessment of ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge facilities, criticism of the park and recreation system’s involvement in the matter is ramping up.
BREC Commissioner Mike Walker says he opposes any effort by the BREC administration to appeal Exxon’s assessment to the Louisiana Tax Commission, which would be the next step in the process now that the Metro Council has voted to deny the appeal.
Walker says he should have spoken up at the BREC Commission’s monthly meeting Sept. 19, when BREC administrator Corey Williams briefed commissioners on the administration’s plan to challenge Exxon’s assessment. The park system alleges Exxon’s four Baton Rouge facilities are being under-assessed by some $338 million, resulting in a potential annual loss to parish agencies of some $5 million in tax revenue and to BREC, specifically, of $700,000.
“I don’t think we really understood what we were being briefed on nor what action we were going to take,” Walker says. “I am disturbed by it. I’ve had time to stew on it a little and I don’t think we should do what we’re doing.”
At the Sept. 19 meeting, Williams briefly told commissioners the administration planned to appeal what it believes is a significant underassessment of a major property owner in the parish, but he did not identify ExxonMobil as the property owner in question. Williams also did not cite the source that provided BREC with information suggesting an Exxon under-assessment—even though the community organization Together Baton Rouge filed a similar complaint citing the same data several weeks ago.
Walker says it is now apparent Together Baton Rouge was behind the BREC challenge, and he’s not happy about it.
“After our meeting was over, I noticed (TBR lead organizer) Broderick Bagert shaking hands with a few people in the room and I was wondering why he was there,” Walker says. “Had we known I think that would have been a point of discussion about our togetherness with Together Baton Rouge and I do not like that.”
Baton Rouge Area Chamber President and CEO Adam Knapp also faults BREC and TBR for not being forthcoming about their collaboration on the assessment issue.
“Together Baton Rouge’s obvious involvement in this issue should have been at the forefront of any discussion by BREC,” Knapp says. “This organization has singled out one business in our parish and has attacked that business over and over again for nearly two years. For this round of the attack, the group hid behind anonymity, something that our community and our society should not accept.”
BREC has said it based its appeal of the assessment on multiple sources of information.
In a statement this morning, TBR denies it has singled out and attacked ExxonMobil ever in any public forum.
“Every business in our parish has a legal obligation to fully report their property and pay taxes on its full taxable value,” reads a TBR statement. “Every assessor in our state has a legal obligation to ensure that all taxable property value is reflected on the assessment list. That is what’s at stake and that should be a noncontroversial matter that can be addressed based upon facts and evidence, not unwarranted, ad hominem attacks.”
