Maurice mayor questions police jury on tax collected on 2025 tax assessment

MAURICE - Maurice Mayor Neil Arsement filed a public records request with the Vermilion Parish Police Jury, seeking information on the total revenue generated from a 4.87 millage that the residents of Maurice are currently paying.
Instead of receiving responses to the 11 questions he posed in an E-mail and a hand-delivered letter, he received a letter from police jury attorney Paul Moresi III stating that the millage proposition he inquired about does not exist.
Every year, tax statements for residents of Maurice and those living nearby include a line item labeled “Road District 3-2.”
This millage costs approximately $35 annually per household in Maurice.
Arsement submitted a public records request because he said the police jury is not allocating any of the 4.87 millage collected in Maurice to maintain the town’s roads.
The Mayor wanted to know how much money Maurice generated from the millage in 2021 through 2025, and which road projects were completed in Maurice using that money.
Instead of receiving responses to his inquiries, Arsement got a letter from Moresi on June 26. The letter clarified that Moresi could not address his public request regarding “Road District 3-2” because, according to Moresi, “There is no parish entity named Road District 3-2. As such, there are no public records that pertain to your request.”
This response from the police jury attorney left Arsement in disbelief, especially since his 2025 tax statement indicated “Road District 3-2” and showed that $11.79 was to be collected.
Arsement said, “Let me read that again. They (the police jury) charge you for a road district. It prints on your tax bill every single year. And when someone finally asks where the money goes, the police jury’s own lawyer says the district does not exist. If it does not exist, why are we paying for it? Where is the money going?”
Vermilion Parish Tax Assessor Gabe Marceaux did his best to explain in simple terms why Moresi wrote that the parish does not have a Road District 3-2, when in fact it does.
The parish is divided up into taxing districts and those taxing districts are subdivided into smaller taxing districts. In and around Maurice, it is called District 2, Sub-3 according to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s website.
Marceaux said Sub-3, District 2 is the same as District 2, Sub-3. The only difference is that the words and the numbers are flipped.
However, on everyone’s tax bill, it is listed as District 3-2. Moresi may have looked for District 3, Sub 2, and found no records of a tax being collected by the police jury.
“You would think the attorney of the police jury should do a little research and learn that the verbiage that shows up on the tax assessment bill is the same exact verbiage that I am asking for in a public records request,” said Arsement. “Instead, he wanted to be technical and cute by saying District 3-2 does not exist.
“I just want to know how much is being collected from the residents of Maurice and how much of that money is being spent in Maurice,” Arsement said.
Police Juror Dane Hebert, who is the police juror for Maurice and the area around Maurice, said Arsement has been given the answers to his questions by Hebert and police jury administrator Keith Roy over the last few months. The two have met with Arsement.
“He may not have liked our answers, but we provided him with answers,” said Hebert.
Hebert, who has been a police juror for 20 years, explained that the “District 3-2” property tax collects just over $100,000 a year. That money has to be used for road repairs in the city of Maurice and around the Maurice area.
“It is not a lot of money,” said Hebert. Hebert explained that not much road work can be done for $100,000 in and around Maurice. He gave the example that resurfacing and repairing almost a mile of road will cost $800,000.
Hebert said that, under state law, the police juror from the district has the final say on how property tax revenue may be spent. Hebert could spend all $100,000 outside the city limits of Maurice, share the money with the town for road projects, or use all of the money to repair roads in Maurice.
Arsement mentioned that he filed a public records request to find out the precise amount of revenue generated by the tax and how much of that money was used for road repairs in Maurice over the past four years.
Hebert said the police jury has worked on the streets in Maurice, filling pot holes at no expense to the city.
Hebert recently spent most of the $100,000 to repair a road outside the city limits. Hebert said he has explained that information to Arsement.
“I can spend the money as I see fit and as wisely as I can,” Hebert said. “I explained all that to him. If he has a question about the tax, my phone is always on. In the 20 years of being a police juror, I have never had an issue with a Maurice mayor as I have with Neil.”