West Baton Rouge Chamber endorses school board, communications tax proposals

The Board of Directors of the West Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce Board has unanimously endorsed the School Board’s Property Tax proposal and the Parish Communications District Tax proposal.  Parish voters go to the polls to vote on both tax issues on Saturday, May 5.

“West Baton Rouge has experienced exciting growth over the past few years,” noted Chamber President Jeff Hendrickson. “We believe both of these taxes have a great impact on the quality of life for all West Baton Rouge residents.  If we do not continue to keep up with the costs required to maintain the level of excellence in our Parish, we will quickly fall behind and bear up under much larger costs down the road.”

Regarding the School Board tax, Hendrickson said the Chamber Board recognized that a quality education system, which means recruiting & retaining the best teachers, is critical to West Baton Rouge’s growth. “The tax will allow the West Baton Rouge School System to offer competitive salaries with surrounding parishes so that our teachers don’t have to switch to other systems for the pay they deserve.  The West Baton Rouge school system is one of the best around and is a driver for our residential and business growth; we must keep pace with salary growth in order to recognize our teachers for the outstanding work they do.”

In speaking on the Communications District tax, Hendrickson said the Chamber Board members noted that other parishes have experienced problems because the infrastructure could not keep pace with growth, and they do not want to see the same thing happen to West Baton Rouge.  “This is a proactive approach of providing funds so the Parish can keep our emergency systems functioning at the level necessary for the existing number of households now in our area,” Hendrickson said. “No one in the Parish wants to find out that our systems are inadequate when they are actually trying to dial 911 and there aren’t enough operators or adequate systems to handle the calls.  It is important to note that by funding this tax, we ensure that all calls and first responders come out of our own Parish.  This saves critical time during an emergency, and we all know that saving time means saving lives.”