LAPLACE — Few community leaders are giving their opinion on a proposed .25 percent sales tax increase that is scheduled for vote in two weeks.

The St. John Parish School Board is asking voters to approve a .25 percent sales tax (25 cents for every $100 spent) that would be applied to retail sales, and the use, lease, rental, consumption and storage or consumption of tangible personal property on sales of services in St. John Parish.

If passed, it is expected to generate $2.4 million a year.

L’OBSERVATEUR polled ten local elected leaders, education officials and business representatives to gauge their support or concerns for the tax, which School District administrators said is necessary to offset Hurricane Isaac costs and declining state support.

Three responded.

St. John the Baptist Parish School Board Members Sherry DeFrancesch, Phillip Johnson and Patrick Sanders did not return requests for comment on the tax; however, School Board President Keith Jones stressed the School District is the Parish’s largest employer and the tax is needed to generate revenue.

“The problem we are having is a rising cost from the state,” Jones said. “Our MFP is being cut. Education, itself, is just getting so many hits, coupled with rising costs for health insurance. Once people retire from the Parish, we continue paying health insurance. The cost is just driving up. We need to fill in the gaps.”

Jones said no one, from a School Board standpoint, wants to see layoffs, adding it is important residents get out and support the tax April 9. Jones said District leaders hope to use tax revenue to improve the School District’s student-to-teacher ratio and gymnasium construction.

“A lot of our schools are overloaded with kids,” he said. “We want to keep those kids at 20 to 25 students per our ratio per class. Right now, at some of our schools, we have 30 and 35 kids, which is over the state average. Our priority is, No. 1, to maintain jobs, and, No. 2, to make improvements in the classrooms and to our physical compounds.”

Business response

The sales tax rate in St. John the Baptist Parish on consumer goods is 9 percent: the state’s 4 percent tax rate combined with a 5 percent local tax.

School officials have reported the system generates approximately $22 million from a current 2.25 percent sales and use tax.

The district also levies 39.31 mills for property taxes that generate around $4.3 million a year.

St. John Parish Business Association President Steven Fraker said the new tax proposal concerns him and several Association members because it “greatly affects” smaller, mom-and-pop businesses.

“Even though it’s a trustee tax, where you take it, hold it and send it off, it still affects us because the idea that you are paying that much more,” he said. “It’s so hard to keep business here. In a commuter community like we have, people are already going out of the parish to do their job. If they can get it for 8.25 versus 9.25, they are going to do it.

“Over a period of time in (consumers’) minds, it makes it where it is less.”

Fraker said when the sales tax election was discussed among Business Association Board members, many said they didn’t know enough about the proposal to endorse it.

“Where is that $2 million going?” Fraker said. “I’ve seen previous when you say $2 million, by the time you actually get it, it’s already an obsolete amount. I can’t say that we’re staying neutral, because it affects us more. It doesn’t cost us money, per say, because it’s a trustee tax, but at the same time, we need to see some positive ironclad results that they are going to show why people are having to put out this extra money.”

River Region Chamber of Commerce Policy Chair Henry Friloux said many Chamber members became aware of the tax proposal by reading about it in L’OBSERVATEUR.

Friloux said the Chamber reached out to the School District, asking for benefits of the tax proposal and received some information this week.

“I can’t say the Chamber will support this because we have not talked to our members,” Friloux said. “I would say we would probably be leaning to supporting it because we want to make sure they continue on their path to improve the school system and improve the education opportunities for the kids in St. John Parish.”

Friloux said Chamber leaders always look to local school systems to keep improving, because their products are students and the kind of education they provide.

“We, in the business community, don’t want to have these students where we go through a lot of remedial education to get them up to speed to understand what is going on,” Friloux said. “Getting those students into universities, technical schools and community colleges right after high school is real important so they are trained to do the jobs that are available in the River Parishes.

“It is important that we have a really good educational system that we can count on to educate these kids so they don’t drop out and become lost citizens.”

St. John

Parish President Natalie Robottom and St. John Parish Council Chairman Marvin Perrilloux did not respond to requests for comment.

Next month’s tax election is April 9, and early voting runs today through April 2, not including Sunday.

If approved, the tax would go into action July 1, and the School Board could start seeing revenue from the tax as early as late August.