Vidalia holds steady with low taxes
Published 3:10 pm Wednesday, May 14, 2025
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VIDALIA, La. — Town of Vidalia officials adopted the millage rate for the town for the 2025-2026 fiscal year on Tuesday, setting the amount of taxes to be collected from residents from their personal property.
Though Jeanie Archer, Concordia Parish Tax Assessor, said the town’s current millage rate of 3.20 is “super low,” town officials opted to keep the millage rate the same.
A motion was made by Alderman Tron McCoy and seconded by Alderman Tommy Probst to set the millage rate at 3.20 before it passed by a vote of 3-0.
Alderman Robert Gardner and Mayor Buz Craft were not present during Tuesday’s regular meeting, and Alderman John Betts acted as mayor pro tempore.
“Every year I give the same spiel. … You have one of the lower, if not the lowest, millage rates that we’ve seen in a municipality,” Archer said. “With that millage, you will collect somewhere around $441,000 … based on the current values that millage rate will bring in.”
Additionally, Archer said the millage has been consistent in the town, looking back over the last ten years. “You’ve always had a low millage rate for your citizens and your taxpayers,” with a consistent population of around 2350 taxpayers in the town limits. Home appraisals on average are around $200,000, Archer said, adding a homeowner would pay around $64 in taxes on a house appraised at $200,000.
“The benefit of a low millage is the low taxes, so that’s a really good thing for your citizens,” Archer said.
Low taxes were not the only good thing to come out of Tuesday’s meeting, officials said.
A check of approximately $187,000 from Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation was presented by Reed Insurance Agency as part of a dividend program the town is enrolled in through the agency. The check comes back to the town for having low workers’ compensation claims on its insurance, “Which is a good thing,” Betts said.
The town utility superintendent, Cornell Lewis, also gave a presentation on the grading of the town’s water system from the Louisiana Department of Health, which was again graded at an A.
Lewis said a single point deduction was because of a “false reading” of the amount of chlorine in the system from LDH, which Lewis said, “we’ll accept this time.”