KEN KREFFT

Both SPD and SFD are losing many sworn officers and firefighters, respectively.

My view is that our low regional pay scale is the primary cause.

At the City Council Public Safety Committee meeting of Aug. 18, SFD Chief Scott Wolverton cited a six-year firefighter who left to work for Bienville Fire District No. 4 ... for less pay. This first responder was nearby a shootout on W. 70th Street while stopped at a red light. His new job is five minutes from his home. lt is, however, mainly relatively low salaries leading to the loss of our trained heroes.

Sales taxes are regressive to a degree, yet less so than new fees. Case in point: The city began collecting a $7/ month sanitation fee May 1, 2019. An elderly lady friend, a widow in Allendale, spends about $300/month subject to the 2.75% city sales tax, as well as the remaining 6.3% sales tax levied by the state and other local taxing bodies.

Her additional city sales tax under my proposal would be just 60 cents/month. That was my failed argument when the sanitation fee was imposed. She'd have to spend $3,500/month at retail inside the city limits to equal $7/month. A rather difficult task in that her total Social Security benefit is a tad above $700/month.

'Tis nigh that we allow voters their say, be it yea or nay, on the April 24, 2021 ballot for a new 0.2% sales tax to generate $9 million a year. Chief Scott bumped it to 0.25% during his wellprepared remarks at the meeting cited above.

The 1/4-cent would produce extra general fund revenue of about $11 .25 million /year, enough to give all other city employees a raise.

Were you the very senior widow, would you have rather added seven bucks to your monthly water bill or merely 60 cents each month while shopping? I'd take the two cents daily before the 23.3 cents a day.

Our council members also discussed additional property taxes to cover the public safety and city worker pay hikes.

Back to the Allendale lady: Her home is valued at about $25K. We'd need six new mills to yield the $9 million derived from the 1/5 cent sales tax, a mill bringing in about $1.5 million annually.

Such a new millage adds $1.25/month to her city tax bill , far less than a public safety fee, and double a new sales tax. The "poorest among us" likely use SNAP - i.e., food stamps - to purchase their groceries. Federal law forbids any sales tax at all on SNAP benefits.

Understand that a nice chunk of city sales tax receipts derives from non­ Shreveporters. At the Youree Drive Sam's Club last week, 11 of 50 cars I checked in the parking lot had out-of-state license plates - eight were Texas, two Arkansas and one Oklahoma.

Certainly, many of the 39 Louisiana plates were folks living outside our city limits.

The late Dr. Donald Wilcox, an economist at LSUS, did a mid-1980s study which found from 32-34% of Shreveport's sales tax monies were spent by non residents.

"If you cannot change the way circumstances affect you , you can try to change the circumstances to which you are exposed" - wise words by the German philosopher Johannes Althuslus in 1614. Let's up-fund our public safety men and women .

Just Saturday, Aug. 15, Bossier City residents renewed a 6.19 mill public safety tax for another 10 years, 68 percent casting their support on a 135 turnout. This was a modest 0.19 mill uptick from the 6.0 mill ad valorem tax which is set to expire Dec. 31 .

I believe Shreveport voters would OK a 0.2% sales tax for public safety and the operating budget reserve, or 0.25% if adding city employee pay raises to the proposition.

The German shepherd SPD K-9s need some new doggie bones, as do our SFD Dalmatians. I'm tired of training brave police officers only to see them leave for better regional pay opportunities, and fearless firefighters, some of whom transfer to nearby rural fire districts.
 

THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE August 21 ISSUE OF FOCUS SB - THE INQUISITOR.