City wants new tax plan

The Eunice City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday night to consider a resolution that would call for a May 3 election to re-dedicate the city of Eunice’s 1-percent capital improvement sales tax, in the process changing the allocation formula. The hearing is set for 6:15, preceding the regular monthly council meeting.
City officials would like to allocate more of the tax proceeds to the General Fund, the ballot stipulation being the additional monies in the General Fund could only be accessed in the case of an “emergency” declaration.
Currently, 10 percent of the projected $2.5 million annually collected goes to the General Fund. Officials want to boost that to 20 percent, the caveat being the additional money would serve as a “rainy day” fund of sorts, available only for natural disaster or municipal catastrophe recovery.
The current formula also allows allocation of up to 10 percent of the proceeds of the tax to the Opelousas-Eunice Library, but only about 6 percent is budgeted to the library.
The net effect of the rededication would be reducing from 80 percent to 70 percent the amount of the tax revenue that could be used to finance capital improvements.
According to City Clerk Ginny Moody, the city currently has about $5.4 million on hand, of which about $2.5 million is dedicated to specific projects, including the current road improvements contract. The other $2.9 million earns interest, waiting on capital projects it might be applied to.
Under the rededication, the city could, in a declared emergency, use up to 10 percent of that $2.9 million and of future revenue to meet response expenses.
Roland Miller, Ward 1 councilman, said that he will support the measure, but he has some concerns.
“We’re moving from the total amount of money we have coming in and we’re moving it from one fund to the other to cover our expenses, and this is no solution to our problems,” said Miller at Thursday’s agenda meeting.
“I still think that, at the earliest possible time, if we’re to have an election that we need to look at our millage. I think it’s been 20 to 25 years since we’ve had an increase in the (property tax) millage. And nobody, no business in town is able to operate their home budget or their business budget with what they were bring in 20 or 25 years ago without having to go up on prices. Because everything has gone up. Everything has gone up with the city business, but nothing has gone up with the amount of funding that we have coming in. We’re just moving money around. We’re not getting anything new. The thing that we need is new funding for the city.”
Miller hinted that since the operating costs of the city have increased over the last 20 to 25 years, there may be some room for an increase in the property tax millage.
Alderman-at-large Jack Burson seconded that idea.
“I do agree with Mr. Miller that long-term, for the welfare of our city, we need to expand our base millage,” said Burson at the agenda meeting. “We’ve got Crowley that has 30 mills, we’ve got Ville Platte that’s got 36 mills and we’ve got 11 -and-a half mills (in Eunice). We all know that we got a problem with our employees salaries, particularly harmful to us and in need of improvement, in the police department. We need to see that our officers are properly paid and the other city workers haven’t gotten a raise in God-knows-when.”
Mayor Claud “Rusty” Moody, Jr. wanted to stress that the rededication of the 1-percent capital improvement sales tax is not a new tax, nor is it an increase to taxpayers. He said that it will not “cost the taxpayers one penny”. He said that the measure will ask voters to approve that the council be allowed to act in the case of an emergency.
“Again, I am going to say that this money is not going to be taken out from the capital outlay and put into the general fund unless an emergency arises where we have no other choice,” said Moody at Thursday’s agenda meeting. “We’re going to continue to take out our 10 percent, which is ($244,000), but the other amount, that’s just in reserve in case an emergency arises where we have no other resource to use within the general fund budget where we are forced to take it out of capital outlay. In capital outlay funds, we are limited to the amount of money that we can spend.”
Miller said that city has been lucky in recent times as to not incur any emergencies or disasters that would require additional funding.
“We’ve been lucky in this three years that we’ve been in office,” said Miller. “We haven’t had any major hurricanes or major catastrophes that we had to pull funds out of capital outlay. We’ve been very fortunate.”
At the agenda meeting, the council discussed whether to increase the general fund contribution by 20 percent or by 10 percent, settling on the lower figure.
The matter will be brought up before the council Tuesday night following the public hearing.