CATS Tax Is Inherently Flawed, Discriminatory

By Urging Passage of $184 Million CATS Tax, Baton Rouge Chamber Is Helping Destroy Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE — The $184 million property tax increase passed last Saturday for the Capital Area Transit System is a tax homeowners and property owners simply cannot afford.  Moreover, the tax vote was inherently flawed and discriminatory, in part because homeowners and property owners in the inner city of Baton Rouge will be taxed to provide bus services to over 20 square miles of more affluent residential and commercial areas south of the city limits.

It is no accident that voters in those 20 square miles were excluded from voting on the tax in this election.  The results from Saturday’s $184 million CATS property tax election could be easily predicted because the gerrymandered taxing district, which is 55 percent black, was designed to create a pre-determined outcome, namely the passage of the tax.

The proponents of the tax said the boundaries of the City of Baton Rouge were chosen as the boundaries of the taxing district because that is similar to the service area of the Capital Area Transit System. However, that is demonstrably not true. The CATS service area includes more than 20 square miles of the parish which are not in the City of Baton Rouge, such as

• Towne Center

• Mall of Louisiana

• Perkins Rowe

• Baton Rouge General Hospital on Bluebonnet

• Gardere Lane area south of Burbank

• Bluebonnet Road from Burbank to Airline Hwy.

• Perkins Road from Bluebonnet to Siegen Lane

• Siegen from Perkins to Airline

• Summa Avenue from Essen to Bluebonnet

• Airline Highway from Bluebonnet to Siegen

CATS could have easily gone to the legislature and asked for permission to create a taxing district that would coincide with their service area, but they did not.

The 20 square miles south of the city that is served by CATS is a more affluent residential and commercial area that voted overwhelmingly against an even smaller CATS tax two years ago.  People in these areas are understandably outraged that they were not allowed to vote in this election, especially since many of them own commercial and other property inside the city limits.

Instead, property owners from poorer areas inside the city limits will now be taxed to pay for services in adjacent wealthier areas to the south when the people in those areas would not have voted for such a tax! It is highly discriminatory to impose taxes on the homeowners and business owners inside the city limits to provide services outside the city limits.

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Who won’t pay the CATS tax? Exxon, Albermarle, Entergy, Georgia Pacific, Towne Center, Mall of Louisiana, and Perkins Row, all of which are “outside” the city limits.  Also, non-profits and churches that supported the tax won’t pay it.  Who will pay it? The homeowners and small business owners of Baton Rouge.

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Baton Rouge Area Chamber was driving force behind the tax. The campaign for passage of the $184 million CATS property tax increase was led by a coalition of big businesses organized by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce.  It also included black political leaders, black churches, far-left unions such as SEIU, and community organizing groups. Ironically, few of the supporters will actually pay the massive tax increase.

The largest businesses and largest retailers in the parish are located outside the city limits, and the churches and non-profit groups such as the Chamber of Commerce pay no property taxes.

The victims of this tax increase will be homeowners in the City of Baton Rouge, especially black homeowners who will no longer benefit from the homestead exemption, and those small business owners who still have businesses in the city. This tax will hit all of them very hard.

From the standpoint of economic development and bringing jobs to the City of Baton Rouge, this sends the worst kind of message. Baton Rouge is already suffering from a high crime rate and poor government-run schools. It needs capital investment, but the message to business is, “You’re an idiot if you locate your business inside the city limits.”

Now the city faces ever-increasing property taxes promoted by, of all people, the Chamber of Commerce. Businesses that might otherwise consider locating in Baton Rouge will certainly think twice. Why locate inside the city limits, if you can be subjected to massive, unnecessary tax increases promoted by a coalition of big business and the far left?

Hopefully, this vote will send a message to the entire parish and encourage them to make major changes in City-Parish government this fall. We need to control the taxing authority of state agencies such as CATS and local taxing agencies, and we need to replace the current Mayor-President with one who will protect property owners from massive tax increases and who will aggressively fight the growing crime problem in Baton Rouge.