Judges: JAMES D. \"BUDDY\" CALDWELL, Attorney General
Filed Date: 1/28/2010
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Dear Mr. Ohlmeyer:
You have asked the opinion of this office whether the Houma Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (the "Houma Visitors Bureau") is required submit its annual budget for approval to the Parish Council of the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government ("Parish Council").
As provided in your letter, you are the newly elected secretary/treasurer of the Houma Visitors Bureau and can find no evidence that the Houma Visitors Bureau's budget has previously been submitted to the Parish Council for approval. However, you are uncomfortable following this tradition in light of the seeming approval requirement in R.S.
§ 4574.2. Budget; borrowing money; audit
(A) The commission shall annually submit to the governing authority or authorities of the parish or parishes a budget for its operations during the ensuing year, and the said governing authority or authorities shall have the right to approve or disapprove such budget. Upon approval of the budget the commission shall proceed to act there under
As will be more fully discussed below, it is the opinion of this office that the Legislature did not intend the budget approval requirement found in R.S.
This issue was previously addressed in Attorney General Opinion No. 00-0175, where it was the opinion of this office that despite the language contained in R.S.
Our opinion was based upon our research and examination of the original statutory provisions pertaining to tourist commissions, as enacted by Act
§ 4574. Tourist Commissions; creation; purpose; directors; powers
A. The governing authority of any parish in the state is authorized and empowered upon its own initiative to form and create a tourist commission or by agreement with the governing authority of any other parish to combine two or more parishes or parts thereof into a single tourist commission with such name or names as the governing authority or authorities may designate.
B. Pursuant to Article VI, Sections 19 and 30 of the Constitution of Louisiana, the following commissions and bureaus, hereafter collectively referred to in this Chapter as "tourist commissions" or "commissions", are hereby specifically created as special districts or commissions. Each such commission shall be a body politic and corporate and a political subdivision of the state of Louisiana, composed of the following territory.
In Attorney General Opinion No. 00-0175, this office examined the original statutory provisions and found that R.S.
In Gallaspy, the Court ruled that a Washington Parish ordinance that imposed a three percent tax upon the occupancy of hotel rooms and other recreational facilities was in fact a sales tax, and therefore was unconstitutional because it was passed without the approval of the Washington Parish electorate in violation of La.Const. Art. VI, Section 29. Washington Parish had imposed the tax to fund the Washington Parish Tourist Commission, which it had created earlier that year.
The Gallaspy decision prompted the Legislature to provide for certain tourist commissions to be separate and apart from the parishes where they were located, in order that those commissions could be constitutionally authorized to impose their own *Page 3
taxes. In accordance with R.S.
Act 47 also added R.S.
§ 4574.3. Effect on existing tourist commissions
(B)(2) It is the intention of those provisions to make the commissions provided for in R.S.
In Attorney General Opinion 00-175, in which it was the opinion of this office that R.S
R.S.
It remains the opinion of this office that R.S.
We trust this adequately addresses your question. If you have any questions, please contact our office.
Yours very truly,
JAMES D. "BUDDY" CALDWELL Attorney General
By: __________________________ DENISE BROU FITZGERALD Assistant Attorney General
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