New Orleanians are being priced out of the city. Can the next assessor make a difference?

By Katie Jane Fernelius

Source: Verite News

September 26, 2025

New Orleans is at an inflection point. The city is losing businesses and residents, with many saying they simply cannot afford to live here anymore. They point to a wide array of culprits: not enough good jobs, not enough affordable places to live. Utility bills are high. Interest rates and inflation, too. And as fallout from major hurricanes and floods has driven major property insurers out of the local market, premiums have seemed to climb with every passing year.

Even as real estate prices have softened somewhat, rents continue to be high. And according to prominent affordable housing advocates, the majority of those leaving are renters.

Since 2020, about 20,000 people have left Orleans Parish. And with population loss comes a shrinking tax base, which could, in turn, lead to lower revenues for the city, limiting its ability to fund everything from schools to trash pick-up. It’s textbook “urban doom loop” and, absent intervention, could spell the rapid decline of New Orleans.

As the October 11 municipal primary election approaches, there’s been a lot of well-deserved attention on what the mayoral candidates will do to address population loss, but some local affordable housing advocates say that more attention should be paid down ballot on another race: the Orleans Parish assessor’s race, a race that they emphasize impacts renters just as much as homeowners.

“We often overlook that renters pay property taxes,” said Maxwell Ciardullo, a local housing advocate and co-chair of the New Orleans Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee. “We – and I say, we, because I’m a renter – pay property taxes through our rent. Data suggests that about two months of every year’s worth of rent that you pay is due to the cost of property taxes. … The assessor has a lot of say in whether those property taxes are fair and affordable.”

But what role can an assessor actually play in making New Orleans more affordable?

Assessors are not in the business of setting and collecting taxes – though that’s a common misconception. (In 2021, one candidate for assessor legally changed his middle name to “Low Tax.”) The New Orleans City Council, along with a handful of public boards and agencies, largely determines property tax rates. And typically, the collection of property taxes is done by the city’s Treasury Bureau. (Outside of New Orleans, tax collection typically falls to sheriffs.)

The assessor’s job, in contrast, can seem deceptively simple: They determine property values, taking into consideration the value of both the land and the buildings on that land, and they make sure that those assessments are accurate and uniform, meaning that properties are fairly valued in relation to each other. This matters because the tax burden is distributed proportionally, with higher assessed properties picking up a larger share.

In New Orleans, accurate and uniform assessments haven’t always been a given. For decades, property values were determined by a district-specific assessor and their office. These positions were often held by generations of the same families, passed down like heirlooms, and were found to foster patronage and corruption, with political donors and wealthy influencers frequently benefiting from blatant under-assessments of their properties. A campaign launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina managed to finally consolidate these assessment districts into one office, slaying one of the “two sacred cows of Louisiana politics,” in the words of The Times-Picayune. (The other “sacred cow” was the state’s then-fractured levee board system.)

In 2010, Erroll Williams — a former district assessor himself, who had overseen a district that encompassed Gentilly, New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward — became the first elected citywide assessor in New Orleans history. To this day, he is the only person to have ever held the office.

Williams has some victories he can point to from his 14-year tenure as sole assessor: He oversaw the consolidation of the office, which was no easy feat considering how entrenched the district system was. He had to bring together staff, paperwork and processes from six different offices and incorporate them into one system. Following that consolidation, perhaps his most notable achievement was bringing the office into the 21st century, building out a robust website with comprehensive information about each property and its assessment.

“He probably has one of the top-tier websites in the country, just for all the information that’s crammed in there,” said Dr. Carolyn Kolb, a former Tulane professor and realtor, who has worked with Williams in the past.

But there have also been persistent criticisms of Williams, both by progressive organizations and by nonpartisan government watchdog groups. He’s been accused of “sales-chasing,” a disallowed practice where assessments closely match recent sales prices. Williams has repeatedly denied that his office engages in the practice, including in recent comments to Verite News.

In the past, Williams has also been in hot water over alleged leniency on corporate-owned properties, from honoring expired industrial tax exemptions to cutting property values for hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic – a decision that Williams stood by. Today, Williams has changed his practices when it comes to industrial tax exemptions. He told Verite News that all contracts are now reviewed annually and entered with five-year terms — and that a change order was processed for the tax exemptions in question, with all due taxes collected in full.

As the election approaches, some affordable housing advocates say that Williams is not doing enough to meaningfully address the crisis facing New Orleans.

“[The assessor] is supposed to be a harbinger of ill wind and a reflection of what’s going on in the market,” Andreanecia Morris, president of the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, told Verite News. “The assessor is critical to the healthy regulation of the real estate market. And if valuations are such that they are disconnected from what the community can afford … the assessor’s job is to call those things out.”

However, this year, a challenger is running against the long-time incumbent, and not just to promote affordability, but also to promote the very idea that the assessor’s race should be competitive. Enter: Casius Pealer.

A United cab driver turned architect turned attorney, Pealer has spent most of the past decade working on sustainable real estate development with both Tulane University and a DC-based nonprofit. After Donald Trump won the White House, Pealer, like many Americans, asked himself what was within his power to change, both professionally and personally. That is when he landed on the idea of running for assessor, a race that he knew rarely got much coverage in New Orleans — in part because the position had been held by the same guy for the entirety of its existence.

“I don’t think this is the tip of the spear in saving democracy, but I do think we can’t have elections where nobody runs,” Pealer said. “Part of why I wanted to do it was getting attention on this office.”

Pealer isn’t the only candidate running to unseat Williams – Coreygerard Down (No Party) and Earl “Jay” Schmitt (Republican) have also thrown their hats into the ring – but Pealer is the only challenger that appears even remotely viable. He has the support of several small-dollar donors, giving him a modest campaign war chest of just over $20,000, compared to Williams’ $70,000. And he’s got the backing of some of the city’s most prominent affordable housing advocates.

“In a functional democracy, you need real choices, and we have someone who has been in office for 40 years and has taken a significant amount of criticism for the job he’s done,” Ciardullo said. “I think it’s incredibly important that we have a qualified alternative.”

Pealer said that, if elected, he wants to run an office based on transparency and equity, and he has a plan to put those values into practice.

First, Pealer wants to collect and publish data on local tax incentives, so that residents can know how that impacts their own tax burden. Pealer is quick to note that not all incentives are bad — he would like to see more incentives utilized to promote affordable housing, for example — but he believes that taxpayers deserve to know who is getting relief and how much.

Second, Pealer said he wants to provide more transparency into the assessment process itself, a process that can often feel shrouded in indiscernible algorithms.

The assessor’s office uses a computer-assisted mass appraisal system, also referred to as CAMA, which incorporates various data, like real estate valuations and satellite images, to assist with property assessments. According to Williams, the CAMA system that the office uses is a market-based valuation system as opposed to a cost-based one, meaning that it derives assessments based on the sales price of comparable properties, not on the cost to replace the building.

But some CAMA systems have been shown to exacerbate inequities.

“[Assessors] want to suggest that they make no choices, that it’s just an apolitical computer model and there’s nothing they can do about it, but the fact is that research has shown that in most major cities, including New Orleans, the current assessment technology that they use tends to under-assess homes in wealthy neighborhoods and over-assess homes in working class and middle income neighborhoods,” Ciardullo said.

This largely has to do with the data that the system collects. Where there is more property turnover – as there tends to be in working-class neighborhoods – there is more data, which can lead to increases in assessments. Wealthier neighborhoods tend to have less turnover, creating less data. Over time, this creates disparities between the two.

“Because Black people are systematically denied homeownership opportunities and the chance to build wealth for decades in this country … in many white neighborhoods, residents are paying less than their fair share of property taxes, and in many Black neighborhoods, residents are paying more than their fair share,” Ciardullo added. “And that’s not necessarily intentional, but it’s a huge problem, and there are cities and assessors that have acknowledged that problem and work to correct it.”

Pealer said that those disparities are created by the software, not by Williams, but that Williams could be doing more to address them.

“Other assessors have acknowledged that flaw in the software and are trying to understand and mitigate the impact of it in their communities,” Pealer said. “Our current assessor does not acknowledge that.”

But Williams contested this, telling Verite News that a recent Louisiana Legislative Auditor report said that price-related bias was at “zero,” meaning that New Orleans property tax bills are fairly distributed.

“As a person who grew up in public housing, I’m very familiar with what unfair treatment looks like and have made it a priority to provide fair and equitable assessments to all property owners in Orleans Parish,” Williams said.

But there are other complicated questions that have to do with the data fed into the CAMA system. For example, how should short-term rentals be factored into assessments: Should they be removed from the mass appraisal system because they could artificially inflate neighborhood assessments, or should they be included when considering property values in a neighborhood because they are a real source of income for some property owners?

These are difficult questions, ones that Pealer says are key to answering transparently and fairly when thinking about how an assessor can best serve the complex needs of New Orleanians. Pealer personally believes that short-term rentals should be removed from the data.

Williams doesn’t necessarily disagree with Pealer. He said that, in the past, his office had been in touch with city councilmembers and the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center as to how to deal with short-term rentals; they ultimately determined that it was untenable to treat them any differently due to the lack of reliable and accurate data. But with recent legal victories resulting in the removal of unpermitted short-term rentals from platforms like Airbnb, Williams said that there may be a path forward to reconsider that question.

The statewide influence of assessors
Assessors have profoundly local jobs. Property taxes, unlike sales taxes, are collected and spent exclusively at the local level. But despite this, according to Steven Procopio, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, some of the most important work that an assessor can do is as a statehouse influencer.

“They have these informal political soapboxes to stand on to talk about the things that are affecting them and affecting the parishes that they are working for,” Procopio told Verite News, noting that assessors are often called upon to provide their opinions on legislation, especially relating to taxes.

Williams has touted his advocacy to the state legislature, supporting a bill that could nearly double the homestead exemption as a tool to fight displacement and gentrification, mentioning it in his answers to the Verite News election guide. But some critics have said that those efforts, while well-intentioned, may have the effect of further displacing renters, who make up the bulk of those displaced from the city.

“The downside to having a homestead exemption is that even though it helps the individual property owners, it doesn’t really lower taxes, because those will get shifted to other places, like commercial and rental properties,” Procopio said.

And it’s this shift in tax burden from those who live in the home they own to those who don’t that most concerns some affordable housing advocates – and Pealer.

“I think it’s hugely important that people appreciate that one of the differences in this race is there’s a Democratic candidate who is proposing to lower taxes on high-income homeowners and get the money to pay for that from low-income renters,” Pealer said. “There’s no other way to describe that policy.”

Williams’ attempt to raise the homestead exemption ultimately did not pass. But he did defend the practice to Verite News while also acknowledging it wasn’t a silver bullet.

“I don’t think increasing the Homestead Exemption is the best way to deal with rising costs, no,” he said. “I do think it’s a very good and necessary step though. The Homestead Exemption hasn’t increased since 1980. Surrounding states have doubled theirs in recent years. We’re due for a change.”

He also added that there are provisions in law that do not allow tax recipient agencies to increase taxes to offset losses from additional exemptions.

“Increasing the Homestead Exemption will not place a higher tax burden on landlords or their tenants,” Williams said.

Still, Pealer has an alternative proposal. He wants to institute a property tax “circuit breaker,” which is a tax refund for low-income people whose property taxes make up a large portion of their income. Unlike a homestead exemption, which is a blanket tax break for all homeowners living on their property, this program can target those who are specifically struggling to afford their property tax liability. Some version of a property tax circuit breaker is available in 29 states.

Ciardullo said such a program could provide key relief to New Orleanians struggling to afford to stay in the city.

“This is exactly the kind of program for these sorts of homeowners,” Ciardullo said. “And there are states that have included renters in that as well, where they offer a renter tax credit to help renters with a portion of their rent that is going to pay those properties’ increasing property taxes.”

However, even with their influence in the state legislature, assessors face tremendous challenges in changing property tax law, since it often requires amending the state constitution, a drawn-out process that requires signoff from two-thirds of state legislators, then a statewide election.

“Here’s one of the issues: Anything that deals with property taxes is written into the constitution. So anytime someone wants to make a change to property taxes, whether it’s the assessment rate or whatever it is, like putting in something like this breaker system, that requires a constitutional amendment,” Procopio said.

Both Williams and Pealer, though, see an opportunity in the state constitution, which allows the legislature to provide tax relief to residential lessees “similar to that granted to homeowners through homestead exemptions.”

Pealer hopes to advocate for the legislature to use that provision to provide some relief to renters: “It doesn’t require a statewide referendum. It doesn’t require a two-thirds majority, and it would be cheaper [than increasing the homestead exemption.]”

Williams agreed.

“This is something I fully support even though the tax credits provided for rents from programs in other states are income tax credits since they don’t directly pay for property taxes,” Williams said. “We will happily work with any legislator on this and advocate for passage of this kind of rental relief.”

If Pealer does manage to unseat Williams, he will have a long time to prepare. Due to the fact that the assessor’s office is a parochial appointment, Pealer wouldn’t even be inaugurated until the very end of 2026 — effectively starting his term on January 1, 2027.

For now, his biggest challenge is getting enough people to care about this race. Few organizations have chosen to do questionnaires or endorsements for the race (to hear from all of the four candidates in the assessor’s race, check out our election guide). Social media is alight with the drama and intrigue of top-of-the-ballot candidates for mayor, sheriff, and council. It can be hard to drum up enthusiasm for what ultimately is seen as an office that deals exclusively with numbers.

Still, for those who do care about this race, they hope that they can help New Orleanians understand its importance — especially as the city stares down climate change, population loss and the potential collapse of its real estate market.

“The chickens are coming home to roost,” Morris said.

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