Not so fast, Mr. Mayor.
That’s the message Metro Council sent to Mayor Kip Holden at its meeting Wednesday night, as it voted against putting on the May 2 ballot the mayor’s proposed $335 million public safety bond package and a proposed property tax increase that would benefit the St. George Fire Protection District. However, the council likely will vet the measures again later this year for possible inclusion on the October 24 ballot.
Though one of the main concerns council members raised about Holden’s bond proposal had to do with the timing of the election, it also was clear some members still have a lot of questions about the financial details of the proposal itself.
Spring elections historically have lower voter turnout than fall elections, meaning less than 10% of registered voters in the parish could decide tax issues if they were placed on the May ballot. And because the state provides some money for statewide elections in the fall, placing the items on the May ballot also would be more costly for the city-parish, said Bond Counsel Richard Leibowitz. He estimated it would cost as much as $420,000 to place the items on the May ballot, and while Leibowitz did not have an estimate on what it would cost to place them on the October ballot, he said it likely would be cheaper.
For those reasons, the city-parish Plan of Government was amended in the late 1990s to make it harder for tax elections to get on the spring ballot. In order to put the proposed bond issue on the May 2 ballot, the council would have had to declare financing provided by the measure an emergency, which the council declined to do Wednesday. The bond issue measure calls for the imposition of a one-quarter cent sales tax for 25 years, as well as a 0.5-mill property tax increase for a period of 10 years.
Timing issues aside, the Holden administration likely will need to explain in greater detail the public safety projects included in the bond proposal if it is to win the council’s favor for inclusion on the October ballot. Several members complained that key financial details of the projects were not provided.
After the bond issue was rejected by the council on an 8-4 vote, Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel said he would try to get more information to the members.
“I admit that wasn’t the best way to do it,” Daniel said, who nonetheless suggested the council may have voted the tax down for political reasons. “No one likes to approve a tax.”
Council members Donna Collins-Lewis, Ronnie Edwards, C. Denise Marcelle and Tara Wicker voted to send the public safety issue to voters, while members Trae Welch, Chauna Banks-Daniel, Chandler Loupe, Buddy Amoroso, Joel Boé, Ryan Heck and John Delgado vote against it.
The council also justified rejecting the St. George tax proposal by saying the election would not have enough voter participation and would be better suited for the October ballot, though there also appeared to be confusion among some council members about the details of that proposal. Unlike the public safety measure, the St. George tax proposal did not need to be declared an emergency because it would not be voted on in a parish-wide election.
The vote on the measure was 6-6, with Amoroso, Banks-Daniel, Collins-Lewis, Delgado, Heck and Marcelle voting against it, and Boé, Edwards, Loupe, Welch, Wilson and Wicker voting in favor.
Voters would have been asked to approve a 2-mill addition to the current 1.25 millage. Chief Gerry Tarleton said the district would miss out on $1.5 million in revenue in 2017 if the measure is not approved by voters.
Portions of the city-parish that in recent months have been annexed to the city of Baton Rouge—including the Mall of Louisiana, L’Auberge Casino & Hotel and various hospitals—no longer are required to pay the tax, contributing to a $300,000 to $400,000 loss in revenue to the fire district, Tarleton has said.
Heck said he voted against it in part because he believes the fire district’s revenue will increase in the coming years as the area experiences further economic growth and the value of properties rise as a result. —Kelly Connelly
