Tax collection slides in Lafourche

Sales tax collection in Lafourche Parish is off to a slow start in 2012 when compared to collections from the previous year, but the comparatively low intake is still ahead of the budgeted pace.

Ryan Friedlander, the parish’s finance director, projects yearly collection totals based on historical figures versus expectations. Parish administrators, and the parish council, then decide where the money should be spent. The past few years, Friedlander has called his budgets “conservative,” a method he has used to help avoid shortfalls.

Although January 2012 collections, the latest available numbers, fall short of the pace set in the first month of last year, none of the funds have dipped their budgeted pace. One fund, however, has developed a streak of bringing in less revenue than 12 months prior.

In Road Sales Tax District 2, which encompasses the southern part of the parish sans Golden Meadow, a municipality, January collections totaled $250,000, about 2.4 percent less than last year’s January total. The collection is 14.3 percent more than the budgeted pace.

RSTD 2 has now fallen short of previous year monthly totals for eight-straight months dating back to last June. The fund was the only collection source that failed to meet 2010 levels in 2011, falling 1.4 percent shy.

Still, RSTD 2 exceeded budgeted totals by 10.5 percent last year.

“I become concerned when there is a significant drop in collections when comparing current month collections to prior month collections,” Friedlander said in an email. “There is always a concern when actual is lower than budgeted.”

Road Sales Tax District A collections totaled $301,000 in January, 3.1 percent less than the first month of last year and 2.5 percent less than the first month of 2010, but 8.6 percent more than the 2012 budgeted pace.

RSTD A collected $3.8 million in 2011, 16.5 percent more than the budgeted amount and 9.6 percent more than its 2010 collections.

The Solid Waste Fund, which takes in a parish-wide tax to pay for garbage pick-up services, collected $585,000 in January, 3.5 percent less than January 2011 and 4 percent more than the budgeted pace.

In 2011, Solid Waste collected $6.9 million, 13.4 percent more than the budgeted total and 4.4 percent more than 2010 collections.

Total 2011 collections in both road sales tax districts and the solid waste fund exceeded budgeted amounts for the year.

Additional job opportunities and claim payouts in the months following the BP oil spill in April 2010 aided the local economy, Friedlander said.

“As work related to the spill decreased along with a reduction in claims paid, one had to anticipate the local economy experiencing a correction,” Friedlander said. “With the oilfield service industry declining, the local economy will rely heavily on both inland and deepwater drilling as well as production to maintain a healthy economy.”

The finance director said high gas and commodity prices could hamper Lafourche tourism, which “directly impacts sales tax collections.”

But the high price of oil is a double-edged sword in Lafourche.

The parish’s autonomous royalty fund, which oil companies pay in to for oil extraction and is correlated to the price of oil trading, is up 37.1 percent year to date after a $449,000 collection in January. The month’s revenue eclipsed the budgeted pace by 36.7 percent.

In 2011, royalty collections totaled $5.5 million, 34.7 percent more than budgeted projections at the beginning of the year and 45 percent more than its 2010 intake.

Councilman Phillip Gouaux, District 7, said royalty collections that surpass budgeted expenditures this year should be dedicated to drainage and flood-protection projects, such as levees, flood walls and pump stations.

Gouaux said unbudgeted funds should go toward repairing the levee along the 40 Arpent Canal from Valentine to Larose.

“The North Lafourche Levee District has some sheet piles, supposedly, that may assist, but it’s not enough to complete the damaged portion of the area,” Gouaux said. “Definitely, (levee repair) would be a top priority.”