A recent mail out from the Port of New Orleans raised eyebrows with the claim that by 2050, St. Bernard Parish Government will receive $760 million per year in tax revenues.
That is an astonishing amount. For a comparison, a recent report from the assessor’s office shows that all of the taxable property in St. Bernard Parish is valued at $730,742,421.00.
According to the Port’s recent flyer, in just under 25 years, the new tax revenue to St. Bernard Parish just from the Louisiana International Terminal would exceed the value of all of the other taxable property in St. Bernard Parish. These amounts are so disproportionate so as to raise serious questions about the Port’s revenue projections. And that is the most polite way of putting it.
Of additional interest is the proportion of St. Bernard that would qualify as tax exempt. Based on the 2024 report from the assessor, all of the tax exempt property in St. Bernard Parish is valued at $51,000,063. Of that, $36,483,243 , or 71.5% of all of the tax-exempt property in St. Bernard Parish, is currently owned by the Port of New Orleans.
The Port of New Orleans has repeatedly boasted that the Louisiana International Terminal will be a $1.8 billion development. Given that the Port of New Orleans is tax exempt, the Louisiana International Terminal would increase the tax exempt property in St. Bernard Parish to roughly $1,814,516,820, while the taxable property would remain at $730,742,421.00. Thus, the tax exempt property in St. Bernard Parish would dwarf all of the remaining taxable property. The $1.8 billion dollar port would result in approximately 70.7% of all of property in St. Bernard Port being tax exempt.
This raises questions about the burden of such a development on local government resources. Tax exempt entities do not pay property taxes, but they do still utilize and draw down the resources of local governments.
It is for this reason that many of the residents have good reason doubt the so-called benefits of the LIT facility.
When the Port says that St. Bernard will receive an estimated $760 million in new tax revenue per year, that is a lie! That’s the most direct way of putting it.
Update: Following the publication noted above, the Port of New Orleans issued a correction to its website acknowledging that the LIT facility would not generate $760 million per year. Rather, the correction provides that the Port of New Orleans will generate $760 million in new taxes on a cumulative basis by the year 2050, which equates to approximately $41 million per year.
As usual, the correction does not receive nearly the attention as the original publication and if the Port could make such an egregious error in it’s publication to the residents of St. Bernard, it makes one wonder what other errors are out there that haven’t been corrected.
