COVID not too hard on parish’s finances

In a report to the Parish Council at the Aug. 4 meeting, President Chester Cedars outlined the latest data on the parish’s financial status during the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted the economy since late March.
Cedars reported that June revenues, the most current for which detailed information is available, were down only about ten percent from 2019 figures. Not a good development, but certainly not a “worst case” scenario either, he said.
At just under $303,400, June proceeds in Sales Tax District 1, which includes only non-municipal areas, were above last year’s $278,000 figure. STD 2, encompassing the entire parish, contributed revenues of $93,700, down 14 percent from 2018-19’s receipts of $139,000.
Not surprisingly, hotel and motel tax revenues were down about 20 percent, at $124,600 compared to $156,000 for the previous fiscal year.
Video poker machines brought the parish $959,700, about $41,000 less than the figure of just over $1 million for the same period in 2019.
Oil and gas severance taxes were above the budgeted level of $975,000, at $1,063,000. However, Cedars seemed somewhat skeptical about the figures, saying “I’m not really sure how to analyze that.” But he cautions that the effects of the slowdown in oil production will be felt in 2021 and beyond.
“But the bottom line,” he commented, “is that we are going to be OK. Our sales taxes did not suffer as much as many parishes, including Lafayette Parish. It may indicate that St. Martin residents did more of their shopping locally, which demonstrates why we should always promote shopping here at home.”

In other business at last week’s meeting, council members approved 80 percent, ten year ad valorem tax exemptions for both Peppers Unlimited of Louisiana Inc. and the Louisiana Sugar Cane Coop Inc. (LaSuCa) under the Industrial Tax exemption Program.
LaSuCa, which produces raw sugar and blackstrap molasses from sugarcane, has recently invested more than $1.5 million in the expansion of its mill at St. John. The payroll for the company’s 108 employees will run around $8.2 million per year.
Peppers Unlimited, which produces hot sauce, chicken wing sauce, steak sauce, soy sauce, Teriyaki sauce and Worcester sauce for customers across the globe, recently spent just under $800,000 for additional sauce and pepper mash tanks and a machine to package hot sauce into small pouches.
The firm employs around 120 people with an estimated annual payroll of $5.8 million.
Also at last week’s meeting, several ordinances were introduced for publication including the setting of speed limits on several parish roads, adoption of 2020 property tax millage rates, and awarding the electrical power franchise to Entergy Louisiana LLC to provide power to Lower St. Martin Parish for 25 years.