Tax bills for mosquitos going down

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 29, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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When East Baton Rouge Parish property owners open their property tax bills this year, some may find themselves suffering from sticker shock because of the reassessment that occurred earlier this year.

Parishwide, property values rose by about 7 percent this year, and some agencies are taking advantage of a state law that allows them to capitalize on the rising value and increase their revenue.

But one area where property owners won’t be seeing a tax increase is the East Baton Rouge Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control District, where property taxes are on their way down.

“We told the voters in 2006 when they approved a 1-mill tax for the West Nile virus that we would reduce it to 0.35-mill by 2009,” district Director Matt Yates said.

“We actually did better than that and rolled the 1-mill tax back to 0.3 mill,” Yates added.

He noted the agency is delivering on its promise despite such obstacles as Hurricane Gustav and rising fuel prices.

In addition to trimming the 1-mill tax by 70 percent, Yates’ department is reducing a second property tax to generate the same revenue as this year in light of the increase in overall East Baton Rouge property values.

State law mandates that parish assessors reassess property values every four years, and this year East Baton Rouge property values increased by an average about 7 percent parishwide.

The state requires taxing entities to recalculate their millage to generate the same revenue as last year, but some agencies such as the library system and the local park system have opted to keep their millages at last year’s rates to generate more money under the higher reassessed property values.

In Mosquito Control’s case, the same revenue could have been generated this year by reducing the 1-mill tax passed in 2006 to 0.94 and trimming the other millage that dates back to 1979 from 1.23 mills to 1.15 mills.

But Yates said his department and its governing board felt an obligation to go beyond that and reduce the 1-mill tax to 0.3 mill.

For a home valued at $200,000 before the homestead exemption, the latest mosquito control tax will cost about $18.13.

Last year, a home of the same value would have paid $27.87 in mosquito control taxes.