When people build in Livingston Parish, in certain cities they now have to visit the parish assessor’s office before taking final occupancy. The man behind the plan, Assessor Jeff Taylor, says the new routine allows him to make sure properties are correctly listed on the tax rolls, something that might otherwise slip through the cracks because of willful neglect or happenstance.
“It has been an absolute godsend to us,” Taylor says of the strategy for ensuring that property owners pay their fair share of the tax burden in the woodsy realm east of Baton Rouge.
“When they [go] to get a permit, they can’t get their utilities, their electricity, turned on until they come into the assessor’s office to make sure they’re on the rolls,” he says. “We were trying to do permits through the permit office. Then you have to take something to Denham Springs or Livingston to show them you’re on the rolls. You have to send a form to Entergy or DEMCO to let them know it’s taken care of on the parish level.”
Inspired by a Mississippi assessor’s innovation, Taylor says he worked out an agreement with Denham Springs, Walker and Livingston to funnel people to his office with their building documents, although he could not quantify how many property owners have been added to parish millage records as a result.
He says he’d considered “trying to chase ’em down,” meaning, new homeowners. The length of the chase seems to have put him and colleagues off. “It may take six to 12 months to finish construction, and we’re going back and forth to get them on the rolls. The problem is spending too much time going out there. [Now] they have to bring their blueprint to us.”
He says any added tax revenue is critical, given a battered economy, sliding sales tax revenue and budget cutting. And he hopes his plan becomes a model for other parishes faced with the challenge of monitoring spread-out development.
“We’re definitely high on millages,” he says, estimating that the parish average of 125 mills is among the top 13 rates in the state. “We don’t have a lot of industry out here. That burden is passed to the homeowners. Districts have decided to hold on to the windfall of money instead of letting it go back to the people. In the last two years, we’ve had a real push asking districts to lower their millages.”
It was two years ago that property values were reassessed, causing an outcry among parish residents, who saw valuations rise on average 25%. Taylor says some tax districts, including the sheriff’s office, rolled back millages but that most kept their rates and raked in extra funding.
When Taylor took office a decade ago, he says the assessed taxable value of properties in the parish was $101 million; last year, the amount was $385 million. While the population rose 30% in that time, Taylor says the increase in assessed property value was 274%—even as “our millage amounts that districts are charging has stayed pretty consistent.” His department has two assessments, a 1.28 millage and a 6.52 millage.
Last year in the parish, about 55,500 parcels were nonexempt, while about 33,200 parcels had homestead exemptions. The total assessed taxable value of property last year was nearly $213 million, according to Taylor’s office.
Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer is not a fan of the new assessment strategy. “I’m not real keen on holding people’s electricity,” he says. “We have a one-stop shop to get environmental studies done, planning and permits, sewage, all of that at our government office. That’s the purpose of customers not having to run all over the parish.”
His priority has been generating sales tax, so any added step that comes before encouraging business growth is one disincentive to locate a business in Livingston Parish.
Brian Wilson, the assessor for East Baton Rouge Parish, says an urbanized area like the one he is responsible for doesn’t need the extra step to stay on top of new buildings. “All the permits from the city-parish come directly to us,” he says. “We’ve been successful in putting all new properties on our tax rolls. I don’t see the need to burden property owners any further by coming down here.”
He says the city provides him with square footage, completion dates and other details for projects that his office then assesses. Yet in a rural parish such as Livingston, Taylor says there is a greater need to channel people to him rather than having his staff check on all the parcels spread throughout the pines.
“A temporary tie-in means you have electricity to your house. A builder can take a house and finish it, but if they never turn on anything, they can hold that house for years before sale,” he says, noting one loophole that his new system closes: completed structures that aren’t on the rolls yet.
He also says the strategy helped him find double homestead exemptions, where a couple might have a rental property and a residence but would claim exemptions on both, something that is disallowed. “We have been able to flush a number of those out,” he says.
Taylor would like the whole of Livingston to implement the plan along with the few cities he has signed up so far, but Grimmer is pushing back, he says.
The trick to the whole system is to get owners on the rolls while not unnecessarily taking advantage of millage maximums, according to Livingston Parish Council member Thomas Watson, who owns several companies, including mini-storage and apartment complex businesses. “I’m real keen to property taxes. I pay a bunch of ’em,” he says with a laugh, “but gladly so.”
A potential boon for the parish is that if millage rates are rolled back, the area would be more competitive with fast-growing Ascension and landmark East Baton Rouge parishes for businesses that don’t benefit from homestead exemptions.
And if everyone is fairly on the assessment rolls, Watson says, each citizen’s burden is less. He notes that Taylor’s strategy of catching delinquent owners early benefits them in the long run.
“It also keeps people from getting that surprise big bill when they do find the property and [the assessor’s office goes] back three years—three years where you aren’t eligible for the homestead exemption because you never filed for it,” he says.
He says the council has rolled back millages it controls since he joined in 2008, to give relief to residents, especially because the population has grown while not all taxable services have needed to. “When our constituents are cutting back, it’s also our responsibility to do the same thing,” he says. “It’s being good stewards of the people’s money.
“Have you ever been to D.C.? On the IRS building there is an engraving: ‘Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.’ We want fire and police protection. If we could ever figure out, Why are people sharing the burden and our taxes still go up? We’d have something.”
