[StBernard] Levee commissioners: Tax renewal desperately needed for St. Bernard-based Lake Borgne Basin Levee District

[Westley Annis]

Levee commissioners: Tax renewal desperately needed for St. Bernard-based
Lake Borgne Basin Levee District
By Sheila Grissett, The Times -Picayune 
October 01, 2009, 3:48PM
The levee district that provides flood protection and internal drainage for
St. Bernard Parish would only have enough money to operate another 18 months
or so if voters don't renew an expiring 4.27-mill tax later this month,
according to regional levee commissioners now overseeing the Lake Borgne
Basin Levee District.

The district has a tax renewal on the Oct. 17 ballot in St. Bernard
Parish."Even if the tax is renewed - and we fervently pray that it is - we
still won't even have the money to provide safe houses for our parish pump
operators during a hurricane," Stephen Estopinal, a commissioner with the
Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, said during a committee
meeting Thursday morning.


Renewal of the 10-year tax is the lone item on the Oct. 17 ballot in St.
Bernard Parish. 
The tax generates about $1.5 million, or slightly more than one-third of the
levee district's budget, the budget shows.


"Lake Borgne Basin is, by far, the poorest levee district we supervise,"
said Estopinal, chairman of the commission's finance committee. "They do a
dollar's worth of work for a dime."


The district has operated at a deficit since Hurricane Katrina, balancing
its budget from a surplus fund built up mostly from money saved because of
pump stations that couldn't operate and employees who couldn't work after
the 2005 storm, levee authorities said.


"With the millage renewal, the district will be able to operate another
three years while we try and figure out a permanent solution," said
commission President Tim Doody, a resident of St. Bernard Parish. "Without
it, we'll only be able to limp along another 18 months."