Faithless assessors

Erroll Williams says his office has a great deal of discrepancy to determine whether or not large industrial concerns like Folgers need to pay their "fair share" (to use the current term of art.)  City Council is trying to nudge him a bit on this and he's nudging back.

The resolution was announced last week, the day after The Lens published a report about potential defects in Orleans Parish Assessor Erroll Williams’ process for tracking the exemptions. There are at least two properties — owned by Folgers and worth a combined $40 million — that were exempted by the assessor in 2018 and 2019, even though the exemptions expired in 2017. A request to renew the exemptions was denied by the state last year and again in February, but Williams did not take action to confirm that the exemptions were invalid until August, after more than a month of questions from Councilwoman Helena Moreno.

The resolution also calls for Williams to formally develop and adopt a written policy to monitor the industrial tax exemptions. And it asks for an annual report from the assessor on “all tax incentive policies, procedures, projects, and exemption status.”

Moreno said that the council can’t force Williams to comply because his office is a state-created agency and he is an independent elected official.

“This resolution merely urges the assessor to comply,” Moreno said at the meeting. “He is not part of a city agency therefore we can’t force him to do this, but were hoping just out of respect for the public he’ll comply.”

While Williams said he may honor some of the requests, he said he would not comply with the request for a written policy for tracking the tax exemptions.

“They’re not going to get that,” he said. “That’s none of their business. That’s an internal policy.”

Meanwhile, Williams is telling us via a message posted at his website, that questions of whether or not property taxes that affect individual homeowners and renters are completely out of his hands. Williams writes,

The only way your property taxes will increase is if any of the taxing authorities which levy property taxes (millages) raise their tax rates before the end of this calendar year. The taxing authorities CANNOT raise your property taxes unless they hold a public hearing and pass an increase with a 2/3 majority vote. Some of these taxing authorities have already scheduled public meetings to consider this increase but have not specified how they will use these additional funds.

Be aware: ALL these agencies must by law advertise the dates, times and places of meetings to consider a proposed property tax increase (or millage roll forward).

This statement is not exactly true. It is true that the various taxing authorities are required to automatically roll back their millage rate such that they remain revenue neutral or roll the rate forward by a public vote to capture the windfall created this year when Williams's office drastically increased property assessments all over town. However, even if a board decides not to roll forward, this doesn't necessarily mean each individual property's tax bill remains the same. You may find yourself paying more in taxes solely because your assessment increased as long as the overall revenue collected is static.

In other words, while the roll forwards will certainly make the problem worse, taxes are going up regardless because Erroll Williams has observed the overheated, speculative real estate currently driving New Orleanians out of their homes and written it into the tax rolls. He says that he doesn't have any choice but that isn't what he says about his prerogative to protect tax exemptions illegally extended to mega-corporations. It seems the question of what the assessor does or does not have the power to do depends mostly on who benefits from his actions. If this is the case, maybe we need an assessor who makes different choices about whom to serve.

Several years ago, a group of middle class reformers launched an agit-prop campaign to consolidate New Orleans's seven assessors offices into one.  The idea was to run a slate of candidates on something called an "I.Q." ticket.  The I.Q. stood for "I Quit" which was precisely what each of the candidates proposed to do should they capture the offices the group deemed unnecessary.  It didn't quite work out that way but the goal of consolidating the assessors offices was eventually implemented.

Imagine if a candidate ran for assessor now promising not to jack up property assessments so long as that action only accelerates the already out of control process of gentrification and displacement. Call it the Faithless Assessor campaign. Could that get any traction, you think?  Anyway, if anybody wants to give this a try my fee is one million dollars.