Louisiana, it's time for a new constitution l Small towns are dead

Advocate article

quote:

---

As bad as the state budget will fare because of a drop in sales tax revenues from closed businesses and high unemployment, the real crisis will be in Louisiana’s parish and municipal governments.

Before the novel coronavirus was a thing, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera had a long list of small Louisiana towns so fiscally distressed that the state was on the verge of shoving aside elected local leaders and taking over administration.

---

quote:

---

A quick review of last year’s financial audits for about a third of the state’s municipalities shows that smaller communities receive, on average, 59.7% of their annual revenues from sales taxes and that was before businesses went on hiatus and shoppers sheltered in place. Most of these towns have only a few businesses — surely a gas station/convenience store, sometimes a grocery, maybe a pharmacy — generating sales taxes that help pay law enforcement, fix streets, supplement public schools, as well as fund other services.

Compare those numbers to Texas, where small towns rely on sales taxes for about 30% of their revenues. Texas communities also have significant property taxes. Louisiana’s homestead exemption, which forgives the first $75,000 of a home’s value from taxes, means towns can count on property taxes producing an average of about 16% of collected revenues.

---

we will never have a moment so prescient or focused regarding our deeply flawed constitution

we need a complete overhaul, from how we handle taxation to our political units. there is no reason we need 60+ parishes with all the wasted, overlapping public spending/responsibilities/oversight. we need fewer political units: period.

it's time that we face the fact that our small towns and villages are money pits propped up by what essentially amounts to organized crime

quote:

---

The number of Louisiana towns, villages and small cities in which fines make up at least half their revenues has risen from 15 in 2007 to more than 25 in 2018, according to a review by The Advocate of annual state audits of local finances.

For 60 other municipalities, fines and forfeitures account for more than 30 percent of government revenues. That’s up from 28 in 2007.

And 194 of the state’s 304 incorporated cities, towns and villages raise more in fines and forfeitures than they do in property taxes, according to latest financial audits.

---

this is our chance to reset, b/c lord knows there is going to be a lot of hurt across most of LA. oh, and the CARES Act won't help LA

quote:

---

But right now, the Coronavirus Economic Stabilization Act of 2020 is the main allocation. The only direct federal aid is for counties with 500,000 or more people. That means nothing for Louisiana where only East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes come close to the minimum needed.

---

quote:

---

John Gallagher said the Louisiana Municipal Association, which he heads, wrote Wednesday asking Gov. John Bel Edwards not to forget local governments when the funds are distributed.

That might prove difficult as the federal money is tied to the coronavirus outbreaks and the smaller communities haven’t suffered the same intensity as the big cities.

---