Bossier schools pull back from tax hike ledge

Blog: Between The Lines

Abstract

The Bossier Parish School Board seems to have, at
least temporarily, discarded its tin ear, perhaps coming to understand a series
of questionable policy decisions have led to its adding another to its
undistinguished record might have electoral consequences.

Earlier this year, the Board advertised that it would
entertain rolling forward millage property tax rates levied by the Bossier
Parish School District. During presidential election years in Louisiana parish
tax assessors reassess property, but the Constitution mandates that the
difference in values for property held and not improved throughout the period
not increase the total amount of taxes paid for that group, meaning millage
rates would be adjusted automatically unless a two-thirds majority wished not
to do so, effectively raising taxes since that aggregate value had increased
over the time period.

As published, it would have been more than a $4.2 million
increase, or nearly 6 percent. Despite declining enrollments, costs have escalated
because unfunded pension demands and post-employment benefits have skyrocketed over
the past few years. Worse, BPSD already has one of the highest property tax rates of
local education agencies in the state, so Bossier property owners have been hit
harder than almost any others in the state.

And in the recent past the BPSB hasn't
distinguished itself in demonstrating sound fiscal decision-making, In 2019 it
asked for drastic millage increases, dedicated to instructional salaries, even with
its elevated ad valorem taxes and higher-than-average proportion of spending
going towards administrative costs, eventually which unconvinced voters decisively
rejected. (In fact, Bossier teachers according to the latest
data rank sixth-highest in pay at the state with an average over $60,000). Then
there have been questions about superfluous expenditures such as for school
clinics scheduled to open in the near future, and a public hearing to raise
rates might open up BPSB members to accusations of imprudent fiscal management
and having taxpayers make up for their mistakes.

But perhaps the most uncomfortable need to justify
spending might come from recent anti-family actions in addition to the clinics such
as resistance to state laws broadening educational choice and extracurricular
activity participation. School administrators called support of these policies bad
policy if just short of racist, with some board members joining in. Some very
unflattering questions in the public hearing could call into question spending
to resist popular education choice policies that might make look particularly bad
some or all board members who ratified these efforts and hired the officials
involved, besides hanging a tax increase issue around their necks detracting
from reelection purposes in 2026.

Uncomplimentary rumblings within the public
already were about. A local
news outlet declared it would publicize which members voted in favor of
rolling forward, and citizens
already had started questioning the move to the Board. This space laid out
a case against the hike and delved into the controversies the BPSB and district
administrators had fomented that could cause a backlash should it pursue the increase.

A day later, the BPSB released a stunning announcement: it
scrapped the public hearing scheduled the next day, postponing it until the end
of October. Moreover, as announced
at the regular board meeting that next day, a "technical" error had
triggered this and would advance a proposal that would see a "net reduction in
millages." Curiously, the notice asserted the meeting still had on the table the
increase of over $4.2 million, but now listed an overall estimate in this tax
collection about $5 million fewer at nearly $87 million.

The attached fiscal
year 2024-25 budget attached to each notice was identical, so it calls into
question what was the "technical" error, but the practical impact was a real
chance now exists that the BPSB won't hike taxes at all, even if the "error"
seemed to cost it $5 million. And if that transpires, public opinion will have
turned the tide, signaling that enough of the public has become attentive
enough of School Board activities and of district officials to have the BPSB rein
in the deviant direction to the district's voting majority into which it had
lapsed. Other
tax-hiking local governments like the Bossier Parish Police Jury, with one
cued up for the start of next month, should take notice.