TPSD moves toward tax proposition

Terrebonne Superintendent Philip Martin will recommend a tax proposal to the school board’s finance committee at its next meeting, he said, but so far he’s mum on the specifics.

The district’s proposal to increase property taxes by 31 mills to fund teacher pay raises, facilities upgrades and universal enrollment for preschool failed by a 52-percent margin last year in large part due to organized opposition by local Realtors and the business-backed Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber and school board then convened a task force including business leaders, community volunteers and the school board’s chairman. That group released a report in February that supported a scaled-down proposal: a half-cent sales tax hike to fund salary hikes for teachers and support personnel.

Martin indicated his recommendation would be close to that of the task force. “You’re getting warm,” he said.

The task force’s report represented the consensus, not unanimous view of its members. Like the community at large, some were split in preference to sales taxes versus property taxes and in whether they agreed any new local revenue is needed.

So the Chamber of Commerce is hosting a forum open to members and other local businesses to solicit their views. The forum is scheduled from 4:30-6:30 p.m., today at the Terrebonne Parish Library Main Branch.

The chamber will disseminate an overview of local tax information and the task force’s report before asking attendees to partake in group discussion and then make recommendations of what they hope to see in a potential tax issue, said Suzanne Nolfo Carlos, the chamber’s president and CEO.

“They’ll write their comments down. We’ll take those comments, put them together and present them to the Terrebonne Parish School System so they can use that information – what do businesses think in this community – to help them formulate what they’re going to do for the election,” Carlos said.

Although the task force supported the half-cent sales tax, the chamber has not formally taken a stance.

“We can’t really say whether we support that (task force recommendation) or not because what it’s going to depend on is the wording of what they’re going to propose,” she said. “We’ll look at it then. What we do support are our teachers and our students.”

A half-cent sales tax would generate approximately $12 million per year, a rough equivalent to a 14-mill parishwide property tax, according to the task force’s report. That would be more than enough money to fund suggested one-time $5,000 pay hikes for the district’s 1,122 certified-teaching positions and $2,000 bumps to support staff.

At one time in the current school year, Terrebonne had 60 teaching vacancies. Administrators cited the district’s position as 47th of 69 Louisiana school districts in terms of average teacher pay for contributing to that shortage and say it makes it more difficult to recruit fresh-faced candidates.

Roger “Dale” DeHart, the school board’s chairman, previously expressed interest in supplementing a proposal geared at bumping teacher pay with separate propositions to fund facilities upgrades and universal pre-k. He said he wouldn’t push for those issues to be included on the December ballot.

“We’re going only for teacher pay scales,” DeHart said. “I still think we need more facilities, but we have to take it one step at a time. We feel like it’s best to take three bites at the apple rather than trying to eat the whole apple at one time. I would tell you that we need the chamber’s support, the business community and the parents.”

Terrebonne is also grappling with the statewide trend of fewer state dollars – $9.2 million less to Terrebonne over five years leading to 2012-13 – coupled with more unfunded-but-mandated programming.

Terrebonne Parish’s sales tax rate today is 9 percent, of which voters for local jurisdictions have levied 5 percent. The other 4 percent goes to the state.

Louisiana’s total average rate of 8.89 percent exceeds all other states but Tennessee and Arkansas, according to the national nonprofit Tax Foundation.

Martin’s administration issued a tentative timeline for meeting legal requirements pursuant to scheduling an election on Dec. 6, a Congressional general ballot: notably, the board plans to next month announce its intent to call an election and to file its application with the State Bond Commission in September.

Martin will offer his tax recommendation when the Finance, Insurance, and Section 16 Lands Committee next meets at 5 p.m., May 26 at the district’s central office, 201 Stadium Drive, Houma.