Notices of the quadrennial millage game have been posted by taxing bodies in the parish.

Public hearings usually sparsely attended are required before officials decide whether rolling forward is to be or not to be.

Traditionally answering the question is not near as difficult as it was for that Danish fellow.

Every four years property is reassessed and new values established.

As part of the process assessors “roll back” millage rates to a level producing no less or no more than the same amount of tax revenue as the previous year; conversely if assessed values decrease assessors adjust millage upwards to accomplish the same goal.

Roll back lowers the tax rate yet allows agencies the income benefit of increased property values.

The state constitution guarantees no agency receives less property tax revenue than before reassessment.

It also provides the right to roll forward to a taxing level no higher than the previous year.

A hearing is required, as is adequate pubic notice, before a super majority of the agency involved can roll forward up to that maximum. In the case of single-official agencies, it’s one person’s call.

Hearing notices are supposed to include anticipated property tax revenue in the coming year and how much of that would be from the roll forward.

Two views are in play for the bodies comprised mostly of professed fiscal conservatives: the roll forward rate is a previously approved level of taxation and enables budgets to keep pace with the times, or it is taxation without approval because it requires no ballot box approval.

Another way of looking at it — rolling forward provides both benefits from normal economic growth as well as reassessment.

Having the cake and eating it too prevails in most instances.