St. Mary Parish property tax clarification

A story in the July 16 issue about increasing property taxes in St. Mary Parish erred in accounting for the money generated and where it is to be spent.

In 2007, St. Mary Parish collected 7.25 mills, the maximum allowed by state law. This generated $1.821 million for the parish council.

In order to collect the same amount of money as it did last year and simultaneously not raise property taxes, the council needed to roll back or decrease the assessed millage to 7.10 mills. However, it opted to roll back, but then roll forward taxes.

Based on the $255 million assessment, that move will generate $27,465 for the parish, bringing their total for property tax revenue to $1.849 million, according to St. Mary Parish Chief Administrative Officer Henry “Bo” LaGrange.

With the money collected so far, the parish council will garner $3 million from sales tax receipts; Morgan City, $2.3 million; Franklin, $1.5 million; Patterson, $846,000; Berwick, $777,000; Baldwin, $424,000; and the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office will receive $1.3 million.