New Orleans’ budget decision season has barely begun, but one issue is already exposing a sharp divide between Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the City Council: tax rates.
Cantrell launched the city's annual budgeting process Thursday by berating council members for pushing to lower property taxes rates after a sweeping reassessment that has caused values to surge across the city.
The mayor made clear she wanted to keep tax rates at their current level — which would have brought the city $13.7 million in new revenue next year. Her $721.9 million proposed budget, however, calls for collecting half of that amount, a concession she proposed because of council opposition.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell lit into the City Council for its desire to lower tax rates in the face of surging property assessments that…
Some council members, however, are pushing for a further drop in rates to lessen the impact of a reassessment that saw 26,000 properties in the city increase in value by more than 50%.
New Orleans City Council members are pushing to lower the city’s tax rates to partially offset skyrocketing assessments for thousands of prope…
Whatever the council ends up doing about city tax rates, several other local agencies that also levy property tax millages will be making decisions on how much they will benefit from the huge jump in assessments.
The impasse on taxes provoked the mayor to chide the council as she laid out her budget priorities, accusing members of using the budget process to play political games.
“The budget is not a political football," Cantrell said. "It's not a show."
It’s not uncommon for councils and mayors to be at odds during budget season. In fact, Cantrell’s first spending plan last year started with the council criticizing the administration for not unveiling the plan sooner and for errors when the budget was put forward.
Those problems were eventually resolved, and the budget passed unanimously.
Both the mayor and some members of the council expressed hope that this year's issues also will be resolved.
“Make no mistake about it, the public likes us to be together. They don’t like the in-fighting,” said Cantrell, who served on the City Council before she was elected mayor.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration is recommending trimming the city’s tax rate in response to skyrocketing property values.
At the crux of the issue is a state-mandated process known as a “rollback,” which requires local government bodies to drop their tax rates after a reassessment so that they do not collect a windfall because of increased property values. But the taxing authorities, such as the city and the Orleans Parish School Board, can then vote to “roll forward” their rates, bringing them back up to where they were before, or some point in between.
The administration has estimated it must roll back its tax rate from 39.38 mills to 36.08 mills to keep revenue at the same level. The mayor has proposed then rolling forward to 37.72 mills, to allow the city to collect about $6.9 million more than it currently does.
The city is also expected to bring in about $9.2 million more next year from property taxes on new construction that is not considered when calculating the rollback.
Any kind of roll forward this year is not sitting well with some council members, however.
Typically, the city’s budget and tax ordinances are written by the mayor’s office and list all members of the council as co-sponsors. But in a sign of the depth of the disagreements between the two branches this year, four council members asked that their names be withheld from this year's tax ordinance.
The budget process is still in its early stages, and any of those members could eventually sign on to the administration's plan. But “no” votes from only three council members would be enough to prevent a full roll-forward.
Representatives of council members Joe Giarrusso, Kristin Gisleson Palmer and Jason Williams all said they did not co-sponsor the ordinance because of serious reservations about approving any increases to the tax rate this year.
Councilwoman Helena Moreno, the fourth member to withhold her name, said she could be convinced a partial rate increase is the right policy, but that “we need to do whatever we can to lessen the impact (of the reassessment) on the people of this city.”
Moreno pointed to shifting numbers from the administration — a few weeks ago it warned that a full rollback would cost the city $25 million — and suggested that with the far lower number now in play, “I think we may be able to find ways to find that money” without any increase.
Cantrell suggested that some council members were being hypocritical, considering they supported a 2.5-mill tax to benefit the Council on Aging earlier in the year. That tax, which Cantrell opposed, failed at the ballot box.
New Orleans City Council members, worried over the effect of skyrocketing assessments across the city, suggested Monday they are open to effor…
Exactly how any tax proposal will impact an individual property owner depends on how they fared during the reassessment.
That’s because the rollback is an across-the-board change based on the overall increase in property values. Taxes on properties whose assessment increased more than the average will still rise even if rates stay the same.
For example, the owner of a property that saw its assessed value increase from $200,000 to $300,000 would pay the city $360 more in taxes if there was no roll forward. If Cantrell gets her way and the millage rate lands at 37.72 mills, that amount would jump to $400.
Thousands of residents headed to the Orleans Parish Assessor’s Office to challenge their assessments on Monday, with lines snaking through the…
Beyond the tax rate, there are few dramatic changes in the administration’s budget for the coming year.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell unveiled a $721 million budget for 2020 Thursday morning that will provide more money to the city’s public safety agenci…
The budget includes $2 million for 27 additional positions at the Police Department and $5,000 hiring bonuses; $1.9 million for hiring at the Fire Department; and $1.3 million for eight additional employees at Emergency Medical Services.
The budget also calls for $841,000 more for the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center to hire additional staff.
Another $800,000 would go to the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission to provide more summer programming.
Other issues have yet to be resolved. The Cantrell administration anticipates discussions about providing the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office an extra $3 million to $6 million for operations and medical services at the city's jail, and it may seek to spend between $3 million and $3.5 million for the planned expansion of the Juvenile Justice Center.
