As Iberia Parish struggles with reduced revenues, council unanimously votes against plan to expand fees on utilities

Published 8:00 am Friday, September 10, 2021

District 11 Councilman Brian Napier, who led the charge against the franchise fees, said that he had calls from his constituents and was ready to delete the ordinances from the agenda — without offering any other solution.

After weeks of outcry from residents claiming that the implementation of franchise fees on utilities would be “taxation without representation,” their elected representatives on the Iberia Parish Council voted unanimously to quash the council’s efforts to expand its franchise fees in the unincorporated areas of the parish.

The move comes as the parish government seeks new revenue to offset the continuing loss of its oil and gas royalty revenue stream, which slowed to a drizzle over the last six years. According to Parish President Larry Richard, the royalty revenue has dropped from $6 million in 2015 to $400,000 last year, a 93 percent decrease.

“We are collecting a little over $300,000 in royalty,” Richard said. “We used to collect $6 million. That’s not a good thing. We used to have 62 people working in Public Works. Now we are down to 30.”

It also comes as the council was briefed last week on the upcoming annual tax assessment results. The preliminary report on this year’s tax rolls, which were officially closed last Friday, showed that the parish lost $40 million in taxable property, largely through the reduction of oil and gas service company inventory. That reduction will mean a drop of about $750,000 in ad valorem revenue for the 2021 tax year, according to Iberia Parish Assessor Taylor Barras.

District 7 Councilman Paul G. Landry, who became a target for opponents when he sponsored the ordinances establishing the franchise fees, said that there was a “day of reckoning coming” as the parish seeks to maintain services for constituents with a decreasing tax base.

“How have we been budgeting all these years?” Landry asked rhetorically. “Basically, we had cut 15 percent of our budget. Basically, we went into fund balances, which is like going into our savings account for $1.88 million a year. Now, we have a surprise when the assessor comes to us and says we are going to take another $750,000 hit.”

Coincidentally, it was estimated that the franchise fee initiative would have generated between $750,000 and $1 million annually.

District 11 Councilman Brian Napier, who led the charge against the franchise fees, said that he had calls from his constituents and was ready to delete the ordinances from the agenda — without offering any other solution.

“It’s not what I want,” Napier said. “It’s not what Paul wants. It’s what the people want.”

Napier gave no alternative plan for raising revenue to overcome the existing $1.88 million shortfall the parish already faces, let alone the additional $750,000 now projected for next year.

The fiscal issues for the parish stem from a system that worked for years, as long as there was enough oil and gas revenue coming in. When that slowed, it left many services and functions of the parish unfunded.

In neighboring St. Martin Parish, for example, the drop in revenue was not pleasant, either. But the parish government there had established millages to cover its road projects, recreation facilities and other costs. So when the royalty slush fund dried up, the basic services constituents demand were still funded.

The millage rate in St. Martin Parish is also significantly higher than in Iberia Parish — approximately 133 percent of what Iberia residents are assessed. In St. Mary Parish, millages are 132 percent of those in Iberia Parish. In Lafayette Parish that differential is 125 percent.

Iberia Parish currently has the seventh-lowest millages amongst the state’s 64 parishes.

“We talk about all these things we have to pay,” Landry said. “As our district attorney likes to remind us, there are only four things that we have to do under the state constitution and our home rule charter. We have to maintain the courthouse. We have to provide a jail. We have to provide a place for the district attorney to work. And we have to provide a place for the sheriff. Roads, drainage, recreation and parks, everything else comes around with the extra money. And that’s where we will have to go down, where we will have to make cuts.”

District 13 Councilman Marty Trahan proposed that each council member should appoint a member to a citizen commission to explore the fiscal issues and make suggestions.

“When we talked about these franchise fees, we talked about something that’s poison,” Trahan said. “It’s poison no matter what way we go with it. We’ve got the people’s attention, so let them say whatever they want. We need to sit down and listen to the people. I am all for creating a commission But I want all of us in it.”

He also suggested that the funds from franchise fees should go back into maintaining the easements that the parish grants to the utilities.

“We need to dedicate this money to roadside drainage and maintenance,” Trahan said. “We need to buy some roadside equipment, then pay it back out of that franchise fee. We could create a roadside drainage crew and pay them out of that fee.”

Landry said that having the ideas come from the public would probably be the only way to prevent an outcry over whatever solution is developed.

“There’s ‘Keyboard Kenny’ out there, the guy who says what he wants without any accountability,” Landry said, referencing the deluge of negative comments he received after introducing the franchise fee idea. “Thank God he left my wife and my momma alone. I’m just throwing out there the numbers and saying that there is a day of reckoning coming. I think that every one of us, when we come into the budget hearings, need to handle this. I don’t want to pass it on to the next guy.”