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Lafayette Parish Tax Assessor Conrad Comeaux joins Discover Lafayette to explain how taxes are levied and collected. Who pays for what? How is your home’s value assessed? This all really hits home when you get that bill in the mail.



Serving as Tax Assessor since 2001, Conrad previously served on the Lafayette Parish Council from 1984 to 1996. A native of Scott, he graduated from USL, now UL-Lafayette, with degrees in biology and chemistry, and received a master's degree in health administration from Tulane University.



He has been active in incorporating technology to help his office more efficiently serve the public, and was the first assessor in the state to put property values online and the first in Lafayette Parish to produce a digital map of ownership parcels.



He views the office as non-political and says "we are there to do a job." While many people may think that the Tax Assessor sets tax millages and collects taxes, in fact, his office is only involved in determining the value of three things: land, buildings, and "extra features" that affect value (such as fencing, pools, and tennis courts). So when you receive your tax bills, they are coming from the Sheriff and local municipalities, not the Assessor.



Louisiana's tax system differs from other states in the manner in which taxes are calculated. In most states the land and improvements are combined to reach a value; here, we separate out features of the property (i.e., the land is valued separately from the improvements) and taxed at different rates. Land and residential buildings are assessed at 10% of their market value; commercial buildings are assessed at 15% of market value.



In a similar vein of Louisiana being different, in other states, property taxes are typically the biggest generator of local revenue; here, it is sales taxes.



Millages collected throughout Lafayette Parish are very low compared to other parishes in Louisiana. In some years. Lafayette Parish millages are half of those collected in St. Tammany Parish. In fact, St. Tammany Parish school taxes are as high as what we are assessed for all Parish functions.



It can be challenging to assess residences in neighborhoods with a wide range of values, and he gave an example of how homes on the front end of Kim Drive vary greatly in value from those closer to the Vermilion River. Conrad's office does "mass appraising," meaning that they look at values within a subdivision, or streets within a subdivision, not each individual home. However, his office is provided with a copy of each Act of Cash Sale filed at the courthouse and they utilize the value listed on the sale as a frame of reference. If you disagree with the assessed value of your home, Conrad encourages you to call his office at (337)291-7080 to bring it to his attention. It will be adjusted if they find a mistake (such as an overestimation of total square footage).




Lafayette Parish Tax Assessor Conrad Comeaux will inform the councils of local governments on tax revenues and the implications of their decisions on their votes to maintain or raise millages. Their decisions can have a long-term impact on ensuring adequate levels of funding for mandated government services.




Reassessments are typically done every four years. The Assessor's office will examine sales around a particular time frame to update values. As an example, for the 2020 reassessment, they looked at sales occurring six months before and six months after January 2019 to determine current values. With dramatic swings in market values, this process can cause people to scratch their heads wondering how a value was arrived at, but it's important to remember that the assessment is based upon a value from a couple of years back.