By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

CONVENT — The St. James Parish Council went on record in support a proposed state constitutional amendment that would increase parishes’ share of revenue from the state’s severance tax on minerals.

Council members discussed the Nov. 2 ballot proposition during a recent council meeting.

Parish President Dale Hymel Jr. explained the severance tax is a tax on commodities the state shares with the parishes.

He said the state imposes the tax on removal of natural resources such as oil and natural gas.

“The push for this increase in tax revenue for the parishes is part of an effort to give more funding back to the parishes to be used for the general budget,” Hymel said. “In St. James Parish, we have very little forestry but we do have oil and gas, and the most we’ve received in a year is about $300,000.”

The proposed state constitutional amendment would increase the maximum severance tax allotted to parishes from $850,000 a year to $1.85 million, for the fiscal year 2010-11, and from $1.85 million to $2.85 million for the fiscal year 2011-12 and every year after.

Pending approval from voters statewide, the amendment would also require up to $10 million of such severance taxes on state lands in the Atchafalaya Basin to be deposited into the Atchafalaya Basin Conservation Fund each fiscal year starting in 2010-11.

Language in the proposal says the amendment would “decrease the amount of taxes retained by the state on the severance of natural resources, other than sulphur, lignite, and timber, and to increase the maximum amount of such revenues which are remitted to the parish governing authority from where the severance occurs.”

A similar proposition on the Nov. 4, 2008, general election ballot failed 875,272 to 704,130, according to information from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office.