Senate panel advances overhaul of Title 33 to consolidate local drainage law and ease municipal actions

Senate Bill 220, an initial phase of a multi-year effort to streamline Title 33, was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Local and Municipal Affairs on May 14.

The bill, sponsored in committee by Senator Cathy, moves scattered statutory and case-law material about parish and municipal drainage into a single, coherent section and adopts recommendations from the Louisiana Law Institute. Proponents say the changes are intended to modernize and simplify rights and responsibilities for drainage infrastructure and to give clearer guidance to parishes and municipalities.

Senator Cathy told the committee the change grew out of stakeholder meetings over roughly eight months with the Parish Presidents’ Association, the Police Jury Association, and the Louisiana Municipal Association. "We said, okay. Let's start with a couple of low-hanging pieces of fruit," she said, describing the bill as the first of multiple cleanup measures she plans to bring in coming years.

The proposal consolidates dwellings of law and precedent into statute, establishes more uniform guidelines for drainage responsibilities among parishes, municipalities, drainage districts and property owners, and clarifies procedures for establishing and terminating local public drainage rights. It also contains provisions to facilitate the disposition of failing municipal water systems when a municipality has no viable revenue stream, allowing a sale or lease in some circumstances without a public vote when statutory conditions are met.

Police Jury Association counsel Judge Denton, representing stakeholders who helped draft the changes, told the committee she largely moved law-in-practice into a single statutory location rather than changing legal standards. "All I did was take the recommendations from the law institute," she said, adding the intent was to consolidate statutes that had been spread across three titles.

Committee members asked questions about the effect on existing local entities and special districts. Senator Boudreau and Senator Miller sought assurances that existing Orleans Parish exceptions remained intact; Senator Cathy said the bill preserves those local exceptions. Miller also asked about expropriation authority for drainage projects; Denton cited a longstanding 1977 opinion (Dugas) that public bodies acting as drainage districts may invoke Title 38 procedures applicable to drainage districts.

Senator Cathy said the draft also deletes an obsolete Union Parish Railroad District and clarifies language for local development districts. Proponents filed testimony supporting the bill, including Caroline McKee, Paulette Bailey Wilson, Andy Fell of Magnolia Water Utility, Hannah Geddes of the Louisiana Municipal Association, and Guy Cormier of the Police Jury Association of Louisiana.

On a motion from Senator Cathy, the committee agreed to report SB 220 favorably. The committee did not record a roll-call vote; the motion was reported with no objections on the floor at the committee hearing.

The bill was presented as a staged cleanup: Sen. Cathy said she expects additional bills in later sessions to carry further consolidations and clarifications of Title 33.