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Jeff Davis Parish Jail Tax
April 26, 2009
Like the road tax our politicians will be relentless until
they get what they want with the jail tax. The propaganda is always the same.
They stick to a few points and repeat it over and over. They promote fear as a
method to achieve their goals.
Residents are upset that the Police Jury did not keep their promise of upgrading
their road. Some of the roads promised for repair appeared to hinge solely on
the fact that a relative or friend of a police juror lived on that road. The
plan was contingent on the Juror in office, had to stay in office. Those of you
who voted for the road tax needed to campaign and vote for the politician that
put your road on the list, lest you put your road at risk of being de-listed.
Shortly after the Police Jury election an article came out in this paper about
one road in particular, from a freshman juror. It was decided that only half of
a particular gravel Road would receive an upgrade to blacktop as one of the
cuts. This was one of the many tough decisions they had to make.
The truth of the matter is, that the road in question had
always been slated for 2640 feet of blacktop at a cost of $63,250.00. Before the
road tax election, when you measured out 2640 feet on this particular road, it
stopped just past a gate belonging to a police juror where he had cattle. To
come back later and say that the whole mile was proposed and had been cut back
to a half mile, when data says it was slated for a half mile to begin with, is
either a tremendous mistake or a tremendous lie. I know my data is correct
because I referred to the proposals handed out at the propaganda meetings, which
I uploaded to my local website, where all my complaints about taxes permanently
reside.
So our local politicians promise one thing and deliver another. Then all of a
sudden we pretend to be surprised by it. We should know this and accept this
going into any election. Should the tax pass, in all likelihood you will see
some version of a new jail, and a remodeled one. Or you will see new offices for
the Sheriff’s office and 911 a few temporary holding cells and a remodeled jail.
Delivering exactly what they promised is not a requirement.
If you recall an election of years gone by a tax was passed for a new cafeteria at one of the schools. Propaganda was used to get the tax passed citing heat, over-crowding and of course they tugged on our heart strings on how it would be better for “the children”. What you got instead was a remodeled cafeteria. There wasn’t even a whimper from the those who passed the tax on where the new cafeteria was. I guess they were just happy to get something! What you always get is a modified version of what is promised, if you get anything at all.
It’s not confined to here. In Minden La, voters went to the polls to pass a tax for a new library because the old one was falling down and it would cheaper to build new than remodel. The original plans were to build new and demolish the old. They cited safety concerns, and tugged on the heartstrings of the public on how it would be better for the children. They used fear to their advantage. They built a new library and began remodeling the old one shortly after completion. A couple years later they went back to the public to pass a maintenance tax for upkeep on the old library and it passed. Politicians prey on our short memories. People complain about taxes but just can’t seem to get enough of them.
Numbers can be used to prove or disprove anything. It just depends on your agenda.
There mantra is, if the jail tax passes the average person who spends $20,000 a year would pay $50.00. Let your light bill, telephone, cable or internet services go up half that amount in a year and local politicians are livid. They will show great concern for those on fixed incomes. All of a sudden $25.00 is a tremendous amount. With taxes this $50.00 seems reasonable to them. There concern for the elderly and those on fixed incomes are a concern of convenience.
The downside of passing taxes is that breeds more taxes. Politicians believe you are in the spirit of giving and keep coming for more. Should this tax pass, like the last 4, there will be more coming in the future to reach in your pockets.
Political math is a little different than regular math. They are saying that a person spending $20,000.00 would pay $50.00. I like to run my math differently. To reach their 1.1 million annually calculated goal, against Jeff Davis Parish population statistics, that comes to roughly $35.00 for every man woman and child. As dollars flow out of the parish into neighboring parish coffers, that $35.00 demand on everyone else will increase. (Remember, were trying to reach financial goals to cover costs). It appears the $50.00 amount calculated is close to accurate, unfortunately it is more like $50.00 for every man woman and child in a household. Otherwise your going to come up considerably short. In order to get to the 12 million, the cost for the jail, every man, woman, child in the parish will have to pony up $385.00 over the age of the project. According to these calculations the new jail will cost my household $1925.00. If they would come to us for a one time payout to build the new jail this is what I would expect to pay.
Another method is to calculate against households. Census data reports, there are 11,480 households in Jeff Davis Parish. To reach the 1.1million per year mark, each household will have to cough up $95.18. Slightly different from the $50.00 using the “political math method”. Take into account the poverty level, which shows that 18.6% of the population does not fit into the “political math calculation their throwing around. They can only contribute a small portion of the share because they don’t have $20,000 to begin with.
According to census data, the average wage per job in Jeff Davis Parish is $21, 940.00. This is before the feds and the state confiscate their share and before the various local governments & institutions get into everyone’s pockets. By that time, some people are down to a few thousand dollars of disposable income. On the average, people will not have the $20,000 to spend.
All of this just begs the question…”just where exactly are people supposed to get this $20,000.00 to spend locally so you can tax it, to reach your goal, so you can build a jail?
Lastly, I need some help with the final piece on this, it was stated that the government could mandate a property tax if a judge declared that the current parish jail is no longer adequate. Louisiana Revised Statutes RS 15:764 describes jail overcrowding and solutions, while RS 15:702 describes how the maintenance of jails is the responsibility of the governing authority, in this case the Jeff Davis Parish Police Jury. Neither of these suggests such a mandate. Someone needs to forward me the law that states a judge has the power to levy taxes on the public without the consent of the people, so I can believe it. District Attorney Michael Cassidy stated “we have had no jail space for practically 100 years. That being said, if a judge has the authority to levy a tax, with backing from the government, then they would have done it over and over again through the course of the last 100 years.