BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Despite rising property values, the East Baton Rouge Metro Council voted to keep the status quo on several millages, or taxes people pay to support various public agencies such as emergency services, fire districts, and the council on aging. In all, 15 agencies were asking the council to roll forward the millage, basically cashing in on a higher tax to account for inflation.
Jake Morgan with the Firefighters Association of Baton Rouge, says this is the first time the council has not rolled forward with the rate in over two decades.
"So for 24 years we've had 6 mills that have always rolled forward every four years, now after tonight, our millage has been rolled back, to account for the reassessment," Morgan says.
Rolling forward means most homeowners end up paying more in property taxes because of the increase in property values. The Council's decision tonight means you should pay about the same as you did last year.
Dome Council members, like Darryl Hurst and Clee Dunn Jr., argued to approve the roll forward for all 15 agencies.
"For me it's about can I pay people so that a happy employee is a great employee because of their public service number 1, and number 2, how do I make sure they have adequate equipment and resources to properly serve the people of the parish," Hurst says. "People talk about doing less with more, what that really means is they have to take last year's budget and do everything that you expected them to do last year with new years prices."
Others like councilman Aaron Moak only wanted to approve some of the agencies' requests.
"It's just the public as far as taxes and everything else as far as general services and things like that, those are being heavily taxed now," Moak says.
In the end, all agencies will get the same revenue they got last year. CEO of the council on aging, Tasha Clark-Amar, says they will have to make it work.
"Well they didn't vote against me, they voted against their own constituents, who voted for this millage in 2016 - they voted for the millage at 2.25 mills, they rolled us back during the pandemic to 2.13, and now they rolled us back again to 2.0," Clark-Amar says.
Councilman Moak says this issue is not completely dead, but it would take a council member putting it back on the agenda to bring up the debate again.