The Jeff Davis Parish Police Jury gave the green light Wednesday to create 12 enterprise zones in the parish, while creating two new taxing districts along Interstate 10 to spur economic growth.

The enterprise zones will provide state tax credits for qualifying businesses in Lake Arthur, Welsh and most of Jennings to Silverwood while the new economic development districts in the Iowa-Lacassine and Roanoke areas allow the parish to levy a new 2 percent sales tax.

“The enterprise tool is just another tool to hire employees or locate a business,” Jeff Davis Parish Economic Development Director Creed Romano said. “You can win either way.”

The enterprise zone program is a job incentive plan that provides state income and franchise tax credits to a new or existing businesses creating permanent and new full-time jobs while hiring at least 50 percent of those net new jobs from one of four target groups including residents living within an enterprise zone, those receiving an approved form of public assistance and people lacking basic skills.

“This is a state program trying to incentivize businesses to locate in what have been determined as enterprise zones based on the U.S. Census,” Romano said.

As a result of the 2020 Census, 12 new enterprise zones were identified in Jeff Davis Parish, he said.

Approving the enterprise zones will incentivize companies to hire local residents, he said.

As part of the enterprise zone incentives, companies are able to request that non-dedicated local sales taxes paid on qualifying expenses be rebated. However, the rebates of local sales taxes must be approved by the local governing authorities for each project or contract, Romano.

“If there were a request to have any of the local sales taxes rebated, they would have to come before the police jury, school board and sheriff,” he said.

The police jury also unanimously adopted ordinances creating the Economic Development District No. 1 in the Iowa-Lacassine area and Economic Development District No. 2 in the Roanoke area.

Creation of the districts will allow the police jury to levy a new 2 percent sales tax on goods and services sold within the districts’ boundaries. The sales tax would be paid by customers buying items in the designated districts, according to Police Jury President Steve Eastman.

The police jury would use the revenue to fund infrastructure improvements along Interstate 10 to spur economic growth.

Voter approval is not required for the collection of the additional sales taxes because the districts’ boundaries do not include any registered voters.

Similar districts were created in Jennings and Welsh last year allowing the municipalities to collect additional sales taxes within designated zones for dedicated purposes including infrastructure improvements.