Where Your Taxes Go

First, the number that matters

LCG’s $813.7M all-funds total includes LUS, LUS Fiber, environmental services, and the internal insurance and fleet funds. Those are businesses and cost centers, not tax-funded services. Strip them out and the government side of LCG — the part your taxes pay for — spends $426.1M against $386.2M in revenue.

Where the money comes from

Excluding utilities, communications, and interfund transfers. Sales tax and property tax together supply nearly 60% of what runs city and parish services.

• Sales tax30.0%
• Property tax28.5%
• Service charges18.5%
• In lieu of tax (LUS)7.5%
• Miscellaneous & other5.5%
• Interest income3.7%
• Licenses2.1%
• Intergovernmental1.7%
• Gross receipts1.2%
• Public contributions0.6%
• Fines0.5%
• Imputed tax0.3%

Where it goes

Same basis. Police and fire together are 18.6% of non-utility spending — the largest service block after capital projects and the finance department, which carries debt and centralized costs.

• Capital outlays24.6%
• Finance12.1%
• Police10.6%
• Elected officials9.1%
• Public works8.2%
• Fire8.1%
• Debt service7.2%
• Traffic, roads & bridges4.6%
• Parks, arts, recreation & culture3.5%
• Library3.3%
• Other2.7%
• Drainage2.6%
• General accounts2.1%
• Innovation & technology1.5%

What you pay: property tax

Louisiana assesses residential property at 10% of market value, then applies a millage rate — one mill is $1 of tax per $1,000 of taxable assessed value. The homestead exemption shields the first $75,000 of market value from parishmillages, but not from municipal ones: every city-tax line on the Assessor’s roll shows a homestead exemption of zero. That asymmetry is why a city homeowner’s bill isn’t simply the two rates added together.

Your total rate depends on which side of a line you live on

Everyone in the parish pays the same parish millages. What changes is the municipal levy stacked on top — Broussard levies no general alimony at all, so its residents pay the lowest total rate in the parish, below even the unincorporated areas.

Who gets your property tax

This is the part that surprises people: most of your parish property tax never reaches LCG. Schools take 40% of the parish levy and the Sheriff another 20% — both separately elected bodies with their own budgets, neither answerable to the councils that adopt the LCG budget above.

Every millage, line by line

The full 2025 levy. Parish general alimony is the one rate that changes with where you live: 3.25 mills in the unincorporated parish, 1.625 inside any municipality.

What’s up for renewal

Millages don’t run forever — each has to go back to voters. These ten expire within five years, and together they carry $70.8M a year in property tax revenue. The library’s 3.12 mills are first up, in 2026.

What the whole parish is worth

Those millages are applied against the 2025 assessment roll, certified September 29, 2025. Across every taxing district in the parish they billed $288.3M in property tax — note how much of the roll the homestead exemption removes before a single mill is applied.

What you pay: sales tax

LCG levies a 2% sales and use tax inside the City of Lafayette and 1% in the unincorporated parish. (Your receipt shows a higher combined rate — that includes the state’s share and, in some places, other districts.) The city’s 2% comes from two separate voter approvals, in 1961 and 1985, and both are dedicated to capital improvements: streets, drainage, buildings, and permanent public work. Only what’s left after debt service can supplement the general fund, capped at 35% of annual sales tax revenue.

• Capital-related debt65.0%
• Operations & maintenance35.0%

What LCG expects to collect

$230,397,034 in city and parish taxes budgeted for FY 2025-26.

What it buys in people

LCG is authorized 2,278 positions across all funds, including grant-funded roles.