The Webster Parish School Board unanimously approved a resolution setting the 2016 tax rates, which shows some millages going down and some increasing.
Finance Director Crevonne Odom explained during Monday’s school board meeting that some of the rates appear to increase and some to decrease, but there has to be enough money to cover expenses.
“The ones that are basically our bonds to cover our general obligation debt, they are based a calculation of the estimated bond payments that we have for the upcoming year,” she said. “The legislative auditor said that we could not have more than a year’s worth of money in your account to cover the upcoming bond and interest payments.”
She says a couple of years ago, they were forced to reduce those millages and spend the money to get it down to a year’s worth of time.
“The argument that myself, and Caddo and Bossier, was that we have no way of knowing when a business stops, or no longer pays taxes during the coming year,” she said. “If we don’t have enough money to cover that year because of a change, then we’re going to be kind of left out there in the dark. So, that’s basically what’s happened. You’ll see that some have jumped from three to 20 or something.”
She says changes were made in 2015, forcing the mills to be increased or decreased.
“We did earn enough from our millages to cover our payments,” she said. “We had to pay them anyway, so now I have to increase the millages to get the money back and to cover what we’re expecting this year.”
The millages set for the constitutional tax, the special maintenance and operation tax and the building maintenance tax are set by the Louisiana Legislature, Odom said. This means the tax rates set were sent to her by the Webster Parish Tax Assessor. They rates for these taxes for 2016 are: constitutional tax, 4.23 mills, special maintenance and operation tax, 6.15 mills, and the building taxes are at 2.82 mills and 2.64 mills respectively.
One mill is equal to 1/1,000th of a currency unit. In relation to property taxes, one mill is equal to $1 in property tax, levied per every $1,000 of a property’s determined taxable value.
The new rates are as follows:
- Springhill District 8 is 7.74 mills
- Dubberly, Heflin, Sibley Consolidated 3: 26.42 mills
- Sarepta District No. 35: 25.41 mills
- Doyline District No. 7: 5.56 mills
- Minden District No. 6: 29 mills
- Doyline District No. 7: 20 mills
- Springhill District No. 8: 40 mills
- Cotton Valley District No. 12: 9 mills
- Sarepta District No. 35: 24 mills
- Shongaloo Evergreen Consolidated District 1: 9 mills
- Dubberly, Heflin, Sibley Consolidated District 3: 14 mills.
Minden District 3 stayed the same as compared to 2015, where Doyline District 7 decreased 3 mills. The Doyline District 7 maintenance tax increased from 5.49 to 5.56, where Springhill decreased from 42 mills to 40 mills. Cotton Valley’s increased from 3 mills to 9 mills, and Sarepta increased from 12 to 24 mills. Sarepta’s maintenance tax increased from 25 to 25.41 mills. The Consolidated District 1 jumped from 3 to 9 mills as well. Consolidated District 3 went from 4 mills to 14 mills.