re: Tomorrow, 4/5/14, is tax renewal vote day in EBR parish

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I stand corrected. You are right. My apologies.

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Apology accepted

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sec13rowBBseat28

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Shouldn't you be checking the news to see what all you've missed?

BTW, the U.S. put a man on the moon, just in case you missed that news, too......

Sad that I had no idea there was a vote tomorrow

I do not disagree. Customers from everywhere pay sales taxes. People who live in SG and spend in SG probably account for a large part of the taxes collected but who knows exactly how much? I don't. And the same thing applies for the City of BR. Outsiders pay sales taxes there too.

There is no dispute about that.

I'm just saying the sales taxes go to the parish govt., the school board, the sewer program, etc. and not the city right now. It's parish tax money in the end.

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Shouldn't you be checking the news to see what all you've missed?

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See if you can find something on this vote on The Advocates website. I admit that I couldn't.

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Sad that I had no idea there was a vote tomorrow

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I know.

The Advocate's main editorial column today endorsed the BREC renewal tax as well as the Livingston Parish library tax.

I haven't seen the usual "Support BREC, Vote YES" signs that I usually do. It's been really low key, probably intentionally.

It will probably pass 3-1 but I'll be voting no. I would love to see the vote be close.

Even if it fails to pass (it won't), BREC will just put it on the fall election ballot and then do a hard sell to pass it.

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See if you can find something on this vote on The Advocates website. I admit that I couldn't.

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Today's Advocate

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Anybody know how much cash BREC has in the bank just sitting there? I thought I heard it was a lot so this tax may not be necessary.

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Sit down before you read this:

According to BREC's 2013 year end financial report, they have $81,660,398 in all of their various fund balances. That's EIGHTY ONE MILLION, SIX HUNDRED SIXTY THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED NINETY EIGHT DOLLARS.

They have almost $36 million sitting in just their general fund, meaning not dedicated for new parks, etc.

Their annual general fund expenditures in 2013 were $41.2 million.

That means BREC has over 9 months worth of operating funds in the bank just sitting there.

Even worse, IMO, their 2013 TOTAL expenditures were $81,375,529. So with $81,660,398 sitting in the bank in all of their funds, they have MORE than a year's worth of expenditures sitting in the bank.

Scroll down to page 16 of BREC's 2013 year end report (.pdf page 10)

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I'll have a bill for several thousand

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Count on adding about 50% to that bill if SG becomes its own city and school district.

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Count on adding about 50% to that bill if SG becomes its own city and school district.

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Currently citizens in EBR Parish that are in the proposed SG and who live in the SG Fire District district pay 43.45 mills to the EBR Parish School system.

Parish taxes are 49.128 mills, the Fire Tax is 14 mills.

If you add up those three property tax millages:

43.45+49.128+14=106.578 mills

Zachary's school millage is 79.2 and is the highest in the parish. It's the worse case right now.

Now here is the tricky part (for you) If we deduct what we currently pay to the EBR System and add what Zachary pays as a worse case then pay 143.348 mills. which isn't 50% more than we pay now. It is closer to 34% and there is no way to say we would need to raise property taxes that much or if at all.

Remember, sales taxes collected in the SG that currently go to the EBR Parish School system at a rate of 2%, would go to the new SG district instead.

So if you look at all the taxes paid towards schools there is no way we'd suffer close to a 50% tax increase, but go ahead and tell everyone the sky is falling as you did the other night with your 11% crap.