§338.160.  Rapides Parish sales tax authorized

A.  The police jury of Rapides Parish is hereby authorized to create within said parish a sales tax district which shall be designated as the Rapides Parish Sales Tax District.  The district may contain all or any portions of the territory contained within the present boundaries of said parish.  However, no municipality, or any portion thereof, situated within the parish shall be included within the sales tax district unless the governing authority of any municipality to be included concurs, by resolution duly adopted, in its inclusion.  However, the municipalities of Alexandria and Pineville are specifically excluded from the Rapides Parish Sales Tax District and, accordingly, the governing authorities of Alexandria and Pineville are not authorized to include these municipalities within the said tax district.

B.  The sales tax district shall be created by ordinance of the police jury of Rapides Parish and shall set forth therein the area or areas of the parish included in said district.  The governing authority thereof shall be the police jury of said parish, its domicile shall be the regular meeting place of said police jury and the officers of the police jury shall be the officers of the sales tax district.

C.  Subject to approval at an election as hereafter provided, the police jury of Rapides Parish, as the governing authority of said district, is hereby authorized to levy a sales and use tax not exceeding one percent (1%) within the district.  The tax shall be imposed by ordinance of the police jury and shall be levied upon the sale at retail, the use, the lease or rental, the consumption, the distribution and storage for use or consumption, of tangible personal property, and upon the sales of services within the district, all as presently or hereafter defined in R.S. 47:301 through 317.  Except where inapplicable, the procedure established by R.S. 47:301 through 317 inclusive, shall be followed in the imposition, collection, and enforcement of the tax and procedural details necessary to be established to supplement the provisions of those Sections and to make said provisions applicable to the tax herein authorized shall be fixed in the ordinance of the police jury imposing the tax.  The ordinance may provide for contract with the sheriff of the parish, the Rapides Parish School Board, or municipalities within the parish for collection of the tax.  The tax shall be imposed and collected uniformly throughout the area of the district as created.  The tax collected within the district shall be distributed fifty percent to Rapides Parish and fifty percent to the municipalities within the district, in the proportion that each municipality's population bears to the total of the combined population of all said municipalities in the district, based on the 1970 census; said proportions shall be recomputed on the same basis within six (6) months following the official report of the decennial census beginning 1980 and such recomputation shall include any municipalities which may have been incorporated since the last reapportionment.  The proceeds of the tax may be used for general operating expenses of the parish and for public improvements within the parish and in the case of municipalities which receive tax proceeds, for any lawful corporate purpose, but the proceeds of the tax, whether payable to the parish or to municipalities, shall be dedicated solely for the purposes approved by the electorate, including the funding of the proceeds of such tax into bonds in the manner provided by Subpart F, Part III, Chapter 4, Title 39 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, as amended, which funding may be submitted to the voters in the same proposition in which the tax is submitted.  Provided however that at least five percent of the proceeds of the tax received by the Police Jury of Rapides Parish shall be distributed to the fire chief of each voluntary fire department in Rapides Parish, who shall disburse such proceeds according to the needs of his department.

D.  The ordinance imposing the tax herein authorized shall be adopted by the police jury only after the question of the imposition of the tax shall have been submitted to the qualified electors of the district at an election called, conducted, canvassed, and promulgated in accordance with the general laws of the state of Louisiana and the majority of those voting in the election shall have voted in favor of the adoption of the ordinance.  Voting machines shall be used in the election and all expenses of the election shall be borne by the parish of Rapides.  An election for the purpose provided in this Section shall be called within fifteen months of the effective date of this Section.  Such election shall be called to coincide with a primary or general election of a gubernatorial, congressional, or statewide municipal election.  If the tax proposed under the provisions of this Section is not approved by the electors at such election, the provisions of this Section shall be null, void, and of no effect.

E.  Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Section or of any other law to the contrary, not less than eighty-five percent of any revenues received by the Rapides Parish Police Jury from the proceeds of the tax provided for in this Section shall be expended for the purpose of construction, repair, or maintenance of roads and bridges in the parish and not less than fifty percent of any revenues received by any municipality from the proceeds of the tax provided for in this Section shall be expended for the purpose of constructing, repair, or maintenance of streets or bridges in the municipality.  Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Section, not less than five percent of any revenues received by the Rapides Parish Police Jury shall go to senior citizen programs, constables, and Justice of Peace courts.

Added by Acts 1979, No. 162, §1, eff. July 3, 1979; Redesignated from R.S. 33:2738.52 pursuant to Acts 2011, No. 248, §4.