Ouachita has a 1% sales tax in the un-incorporated areas of the parish that is solely dedicated for upkeep of parish roads and bridges - prior to that there was a property tax dedicated to such
The 1% generates about $7,000,000 annually for public works (which btw is greater than my entire budget (all funds) here in Claiborne)
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
How many miles are in your Parish System?
I have 833? miles (one way) in mine with 2/3 of them being paved (chip & seal) -
Our budget is about $2.1 million for the Road Fund - which presently enables us to chip and seal about 30 miles of road annually along with routine maintenance -
The big difference is that we only employ 22 people (including Administration) compared to over 65 for the OPPJ
If I had $7 million in sales tax monies for just roads I would be in hog heaven
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
On houses above the exemption - you are usually paying less than 1.0% in total taxes (schools, roads, libraries etal) in rural North LA
Its usually closer to 0.5% -
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Gotcha
Just for comparison even with the Louisiana homestead exemption, the local property tax 2.89 (some are higher and some are less) here in Texas would be
250-75=175k * .0164 = $2,870 for ISD
= 175k * .0125 = $2,187 for city, county, all the rest
$5,057 total annual property tax
Louisiana Act 513 of 1976. Took all of the authority away from the DOTD Chief Engineer (protected by Civil Service) and created political appointed positions in charge of finance and operations. Nine out of ten apparent poor decisions, or lack of doing anything at all, is based on the political climate du jour. If it is unpopular or controversial for anyone...it isn't getting done.