After a promising trend in employment statistics in recent months, February employment numbers in St. Mary Parish were a letdown, a parish economic official said.
St. Mary Parish’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent in February from 6.5 percent in January, according to Louisiana Workforce Commission statistics.
St. Mary’s February employment statistics were “very disappointing,” said Frank Fink, parish economic development director. “It looked like things were getting a lot better,” Fink said.
The 19,760-person parish workforce in February declined slightly from January’s workforce of 19,776 people. The workforce includes parish residents who are either employed or looking for work.
In February, 18,524 people were employed and 1,236 unemployed in St. Mary Parish. In January, 18,500 people were employed and 1,276 unemployed.
A year ago, in February 2017, St. Mary’s unemployment rate was 9.1 percent, and the workforce consisted of 20,486 people with 18,617 employed and 1,869 unemployed.
The surrounding seven parishes all saw decreases in their unemployment rates and increases in their workforces during February. Those parishes include Terrebonne, Lafourche, Assumption, St. Martin, Iberia, Lafayette and Vermilion.
During 2017, St. Mary’s unemployment rate fell four consecutive months from 8.3 percent in August to 6 percent in December.
There is some potential for economic growth in St. Mary Parish, though. Parish officials have received seven recent inquiries from companies outside of St. Mary Parish that are looking to possibly bring their businesses here, Fink said.
Fink and St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff have been making the rounds to different council and board meetings throughout the parish in an attempt to get support for a proposal that would provide “a one-stop shop” for new industrial manufacturers seeking a property tax exemption.
The Industrial Tax Exemption Program has been “a stalwart for investment in our parish,” he said.
“Right now, we are lagging (behind) some of our neighbors,” Fink said.
The plan parish officials are promoting would allow the parish president to make the ultimate decision on whether to give the company the exemption after doing an economic evaluation and discussing the results of that evaluation with taxing authorities within St. Mary.
“We need to be transparent to businesses. We can’t put a wall for manufacturers around St. Mary Parish,” Fink said.
The parish has lost almost 3,000 residents since the 2010 census and close to 5,000 jobs since 2014.
Looking forward, Fink expects the oilfield industries to eventually come back.
“But it will take time, and we don’t believe it will come back to the extent that it was in 2014,” he said.
There’s no sign in the “foreseeable future” that oil prices will reach the 2014 level of $100 per barrel, Fink said.
St. Mary Parish sales and use tax collections in February showed a substantial increase thanks, in part, to “a healthy collection” from two compliance audits, Parish Sales and Use Tax Director Jeff LaGrange said.
Officials collected $3.06 million in sales and use taxes during February, up 28.9 percent from the $2.38 million collected in February 2017.
Financial audits brought in $389,821 in February compared to $31,544 in the same month of 2017. Excluding collections from audits, sales and use tax collections rose 14 percent during February.
Hotel sales tax collections accumulated $38,628, an increase of 8.4 percent from $35,631. Morgan City’s road royalty sales tax had $54,673 in net collections in February, bringing the two-month 2018 total collected to $125,538.
In January, sales and use tax collections rose over 9 percent from January 2017, not counting a large, onetime use collection in January 2017.
During January 2017, the parish collected a onetime, use tax remittance of close to $1 million, LaGrange said.
Excluding that big, onetime collection, St. Mary saw a 9.2 percent increase in sales and use tax collections compared to January 2017, LaGrange said. Not counting revenues made as a result of financial audits, collections rose 9.5 percent.
Officials collected $3.39 million in January, up from the $3.1 million collected during January 2017, excluding the roughly $1 million one-time use collection. Including that large use collection, January collections decreased by 17.2 percent.
St. Mary Parish’s hotel sales tax brought in $35,422, a 5.8 percent rise from the $33,467 collected in January 2017.