On Tuesday evening Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux spoke to the residents of the Broadmoor neighborhood. During his time with the residents, he spoke about the 2023 millage reauthorization and answered questions from the audience.

"What I want to talk to you about tonight is something that's very important," said Arceneaux. He continued by saying that a week into office he and his team learned that the city had six five-year millages that had not been renewed.

These six millages include streets, recreation facilities, city wages, police and fire uniform and equipment, city employee pensions and the police 3-platoon system. The proposed millage comes out to be a total of 7.41 mills ($11,549,500).

"We are asking you to reauthorize those millages," said Arceneaux. "There's no increase... you have been paying these taxes for quite some time and we're going to ask you to pay them a little bit longer."

These millages date back to the early 40s with streets being enacted in 1941, and the newest millage in 1970 being the police 3-platoon system.

The election for these millages will be on April 29. Arceneaux said, "the bottom line on this is, $11,500,000 has already been appropriated in the 2023 budget. So, what that means is if these should not pass, then we're going to need to reduce the general fund budget by 11 and a half million dollars."

Arceneaux explained that the taxes you paid in 2022, will remain the same for 2023 until 2028 if this renewal is approved during the April 29 election. He continued by saying, "it is the same investment that you have been making for since 1970."

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Audience questions

Following Arceneaux's 15-minute presentation of 2023 Proposed Millage Reauthorization, he answered the public's questions.

One question came from Bill Robertson the Broadmoor Neighborhood Association Vice President and this question asked for clarification on the downgrading of the rating for the Shreveport water and sewer bond.

On March 20, the Shreveport Mayor's Office released information on the downgrading of the city's water and sewer bond. Moody's Investors Services announced that the city's water and sewer bond rating had been downgraded from an A3 to Baa1 and Baa2.

Arceneaux answered Robertson's concerns by saying, "Moody's said that the major reasons why this was a downgrade was the bonds contain certain revenues, revenue ratios to debt service that we have to maintain, and we have not maintained those."

He continued by saying the city is not in default of payments on the bond, but it does mean there is a slight risk, resulting in the downgrading of the bond rating. The city will have to determine if it can be compliant with the ratio and that is why the city is currently conducting a utility rate study.

Read: Shreveport's water and sewage bond rating has been downgraded. What does that mean for you?

Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Shreveport Mayor speaks to citizens of the Broadmoor neighborhood