Walter Pierce

Number crunch: Urban versus rural reflected in tax votes

by Walter Pierce

Had the millage renewals for the courthouse and correctional operations been voted on only in the city of Lafayette they would have passed handily, and the school system sales tax proposition would have been a lot closer than the blowout reflected in the parishwide vote.

As the sheriff’s department, clerk of court and district judges scratch their heads, wonder and fret over how they’ll conduct operations with a combined $10 million less in annual funding after Lafayette Parish voters rejected renewal of a pair of property taxes, Saturday’s results at the ballot box underscore a profound disconnect between the city of Lafayette and the otherwise rural parish by which it’s surrounded.

Crunching the numbers precinct by precinct and using as our guide only those precincts that are wholly within the corporate limits of Lafayette — there are nearly three dozen hybrid precincts in which voters from both the city of Lafayette and unincorporated Lafayette Parish, and in a few cases a smaller municipality, vote — the renewals for the jail, courthouse and minimum security detention center would have each passed in the city of Lafayette by 55 to 45 percent, yet each failed in the parishwide vote by a 51-49 percent margin.

The parish courthouse and jail complex property tax, at 2.34 mills annually, generates roughly $5.3 million a year; the 2.06 mills property tax for the minimum security detention center generates just under $4.7 million annually. That funding stream for assets that are the responsibility of the entire parish will soon dry up.

The parishwide vote on the half cent sales tax proposition to build two new elementary schools and replace temporary classrooms on 10 other campuses — the majority of which are located within the city of Lafayette — is more difficult to unpack in terms of how the city of Lafayette voted. The proposition failed miserably parishwide — 59 percent against, 41 percent in favor — yet it was much closer within the city of Lafayette. Among those 46 precincts that are entirely within the corporate limits of the city, the tax failed by a narrow margin: 50.5 percent against, 49.5 percent in favor. Fifty-three votes was the margin. But it’s just as likely as not that among the 33 hybrid precincts where city of Lafayette voters rub shoulders with voters from outside the city, there would be have been enough support to carry the proposition to passage.

Salt in the wound for the Lafayette Parish School System: The precinct located at the Central Office where 112 voters cast ballots shot down the proposition 67-33 percent (70 votes against, 42 in favor). And voters in Youngsville, the beneficiary of the most spending on public schools over the last decade including $76 million for the new Southside High School, voted against the LPSS tax prop by a 75-25 percent margin. In fairness to Youngsville, the city has an existing sales tax rate of 10.5 percent, the highest in the parish. And in fairness to everyone who voted against the LPSS tax proposition, a decent argument can be made that the school board asking for a sales tax instead of a property tax was a terrible idea to begin with, although the outside money and clown of a state attorney general meddling in the election didn’t help either.

The city of Lafayette — the hub of the parish, center of its cultural life and economic driver where these now-woefully underfunded assets are located — demonstrated through Saturday’s vote on the renewals (though less so via the LPSS sales tax proposition) that it understands the value of shared sacrifice for the good of the parish. The rest of the parish more or less said, “Screw it, we got ours.”

And yet it is thousands of these same voters who live in the small towns and unincorporated Lafayette Parish who are happy to use and abuse the roads and bridges without a thought as they drive into the city of Lafayette for their jobs, shopping and recreation — or to the parish courthouse for their marriage licenses and other legal transactions — yet feel no responsibility for the infrastructure. Many others likely never step foot in the city of Lafayette, have never been to the parish courthouse or tax assessor’s office, and rarely cross the corporate limit of the small town in which they live and work. For these parochials, “parishwide” is an abstraction. And many in both demographics send their kids to private schools and just don’t believe public education benefits everyone in a more robust economy, lower crime and higher quality of life. Combined, they were the margin that will set Lafayette Parish on a collision course with mediocrity.

Meanwhile, when the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center starts releasing inmates because it can’t afford to house them, those inmates will step out of the jail and into the city of Lafayette — not Broussard, Carencro, Duson, Scott or Youngsville.