A snapshot of Calcasieu Parish’s 2021-2022 property and sales taxes is now available through the Alliance for Positive Growth’s Community Tax Education Initiative.

The purpose is to give local residents a better understanding of where and how their tax dollars are allocated, said APG Executive Director Faith Hooks.

“As residents and taxpayers, you can now take your tax bill and sit down with this one tool to track where every line from your tax property bill is going — what office it goes to, who is in control of it, when does that tax renew and how many years has it been out,” Hooks said. “Normally, to get that information you would have to have gone to three or four different public offices to find that out.”

Hooks said the tool is available on the APG website, apgrowth.org/community-tax-education-initiative/.

The initiative is a compilation of public data about property and sales taxes collected from five offices — the Louisiana Tax Commission, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, Louisiana Legislative Auditor, Calcasieu Parish School Board and Secretary of State.

Hooks said in 2021-2022, Calcasieu was estimated to collect $580 million in property tax.

“What we actually brought in was $551 million because, as we know, not everyone pays their taxes,” she said. “We have a large amount of adjudicated properties so we know that not everyone is going to pay their property taxes on time.”

Hook said sales taxes — collected during retail purchases — are a transactional thing, so no estimate is given.

“The website shows us that in this parish, we collected $806 million in sales taxes, and that’s for a parish that is just now hitting the 100,000-citizen mark census-wise. We collect very high in sales taxes,” she said.

Of the 113 tax districts in Calcasieu, 40 are collecting below what they are authorized.

“This was a shock for us as we collected this data because we just assumed all the taxing entities were getting the max that they could get, but we’ve come to find out that actually wasn’t true,” Hooks said.

One such entity is the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“When I look at my property tax bill, it says 5.62 mills goes to law enforcement, but they are authorized to collect 7.58 mills,” Hooks said. “That means there is a difference of 1.96 that they said, ‘You know what? We don’t need that 1.96 millage to make our budget so we’re not going to collect it from every taxpayer that owns property.’ They choose not to because their assessments show that don’t need the maximum amount to make their budget.”

The Westlake Fire Department also collects below what it is alloted.

“They are authorized to take a 10 percent millage and they only take 9.17,” Hooks said. “That’s just people doing due diligence.”

The site also explains the multiple bonding districts for the Calcasieu Parish School Board.

“It was $67 million that was estimated to be collected through property taxes in 2021-2022; $66 million is what was collected. They also took in $186 million in sales taxes, so the School Board brought in more in sales taxes than they do in property taxes,” Hooks said.

She said the School Board has 23 taxing districts under its control, four of those taxing districts are levying below what they are authorized to take.

The site also explains what bonds go to each schools.