Sales tax draws opposition

Evangeline Parish Sheriff Charles Guillory has called forth a sales tax election costing approximately $68,000 of tax payer money. On April 24, Sheriff Guillory will ask the citizens of Evangeline Parish to increase the amount they are taxed on sales by one-percent
Sheriff Guillory and Parish Tax Assessor Chris Guillory have made the rounds at most public council and club meetings to pitch why the sheriff wants to tax the people of Evangeline Parish. At these meetings, the sheriff has said he intends to spend this additional revenue to increase the pay of his staff. Second, he wants a new and larger jail and he has already begun discussions with the policy jury to negotiate the building of a facility that would cost at least $2 million dollars. Third, the sheriff desires to set up substations throughout the parish, place officers in schools, and to increase patrol officers around the parish.
Brian Ardoin, a local business owner, retired Marine Corps veteran, and retired Louisiana State Trooper with a master’s degree in Criminal Justice Administration, is opposed to the tax for several reasons. First, Ardoin said he agrees with the sheriff when it comes to giving the deputies raises, which he said they need and deserve. Ardoin also supports the sheriff’s desire to keep the parish safe, but that is where Ardoin’s agreement ends. He feels a permanent sales tax is not the best option because it would hurt the working class and poorest of the community.
Upon research, Ardoin discovered Louisiana is one of the highest taxed states in the country. Evangeline Parish, taxed at 9.45%, is in the top 11% of taxed counties (parishes) in the United States. If the sheriff’s proposed tax passes, the citizens of Evangeline Parish will pay higher taxes than 95% of the rest of the State, and make it higher than 98% of counties (parishes) in the U.S. Simply stated, Evangeline Parish citizens will pay more sales tax than Lafayette, New Orleans, Shreveport, and Baton Rouge. “If this tax passes, we would be in the top 5% of the highest sales tax in Louisiana,” said Ardoin. “And we would be in the top 2% of the entire country.”
While Ardoin feels the deputies do need a raise, he sees the bigger picture that the proposed sales tax will ultimately lead to building a new jail to compensate for the multitude of arrests the sheriff is making. Though some offenders do need to be arrested, Ardoin believes many of them do not need to be because it bottlenecks the courts, strains the staff to support non-violent offenders who cannot afford to post bond, and causes more undue costs to the parish, which, due to limited space in the jail, pays other parishes to house inmates. The cost of housing inmates has been a hot-button issue for some time at police jury meetings.
“The sheriff is reverting to traditional policing, when we have moved to the 21st century,” said Ardoin. “What we should be looking at is alleviating this country of so many jails and instead building an institution that truly rehabilitates some of these actions. If you build a jail then it must be filled to pay for the operation cost of the jail.” According to him, in the state of Louisiana there is no data that indicates raising taxes and building jails make a community safer, nor does it alleviate long term costs. “If generating revenue using jails and incarceration facilities were profitable, why would private prisons like GEO be selling many of their facilities?” said Ardoin.
Ardoin said officials need to think outside the box to come up with a working solution. “The sheriff’s salary is approximately $150,000 a year while deputies get around $10 an hour,” he said. “If we worked as hard to reallocate funding as we do to raise taxes on working people, we would have solved this problem of deputies being underpaid in six months.” He suggests exploring parish-wide budget allocations and possibly taking out loans against parish bonds. “As a community we have options.”
Some of the other options Ardoin suggests is to look into other local entities which have surpluses in their departmental budgets. “Those departments can go through legislative sessions to share that with the sheriff, and he can basically pay them back once he is in a better position.”
Further, Ardoin said the sheriff has said publicly he needed start-up money because his office was deficient and he’s working off of borrowed money. “Now he’s recently received $700,000 from the Biden administration’s CARES Act. And the police jury just got $6 million from the CARES Act. I realize there are stipulations that require them to spend it on COVID-related issues, but with creative thinking or consulting other similarly-situated communities who have handled problems differently, that money can go toward improving/remodeling the jail to make it an infectious-free area. They can use that money for units for deputies to make sure they have the ability to respond if someone calls 911 because of a COVID emergency. They just have to be more creative with that money, and they can accomplish much of what they need for the department.”
Ardoin said before everyone rushes to put the tax through, some questions need to be asked: “Will this new sales tax solve our jail crisis and help alleviate the burden of paying other parishes to house our prisoners? How does the sheriff plan to spend the projected $3.7 million, and has he released a new budget that includes this new revenue stream? Can our economy and its people afford this new sales tax? Will another tax, possibly a millage tax, be considered down the road to pay for a jail or help fund other parish needs? Where will it end?”
According to Ardoin, a new sales tax will create a financial crisis that “will have a direct impact on the safety, peace, and prosperity of our families. We must analyze how we got here, or the crisis will happen again and again. Let’s step back and not react out of fear, but out of wisdom.”
Ardoin reiterated he does support the Sheriff’s Department but asks for other solutions. “The support of our Sheriff Department and police is needed now more than ever. Together we can find the funding without invoking enormous taxes. The people of Evangeline Parish are not an open-source bank for the government.”