A shopping cart is loaded with menstrual period products.

A shopping cart is loaded with menstrual period products.

The Orleans Parish School Board is the latest government agency in Louisiana to forswear sales taxes on menstrual products and diapers, in an effort to alleviate “period poverty” experienced by some students and other shoppers who buy feminine hygiene products.

The School Board collects a 1.5% sales tax in Orleans Parish but voted unanimously Thursday for the "pink tax" exemption. Period products include washable and disposable versions of tampons, menstrual pads, sanitary napkins, panty liners, menstrual sponges and menstrual cups. Diapers are also included in the exemption.

In its 2020 regular session, the Legislature enacted Act 138, which allowed local agencies to exempt period products and diapers from their sales taxes. Last year, the state exempted period products from its 4.45% sales tax.

New Orleans was the first local entity to enact the exemption in 2020, but sales taxes continued to be collected on the products for the School Board and the Regional Transit Authority.

School Board member Katie Baudouin, who led efforts to pass the resolution, said the products are necessary. 

“Those are not luxury items,” she said. “These are things that people have to buy, and it’s disproportionately affecting poor families and our students who menstruate.”

According to State of the Period, a 2021 national survey of students who menstruate, almost a quarter of respondents said they struggled to buy period products. About 85% said they or someone they knew skipped class because they didn’t have access to period products, and 61% said they wore a tampon or pad for more than four hours at a time for the same reason; doing so increases a person’s risk of toxic shock syndrome.

Baudouin said some New Orleans schools provide period products for students. Eliminating the tax will let them continue providing the products at a lower cost.

She said her next goal is making period products available in all schools. She said she is working with the Junior League of New Orleans and a few schools on a pilot program.

Sarah Vandergriff, legal and policy director for Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said the exemption demonstrates a tangible commitment to equity.

“This is an action where you’re saying, ‘It’s not fair,' and it would not be equitable to try to balance your budget off the backs of menstruating families and menstruating students,” she told the School Board.

Baudouin said that the exemption and free period products in schools are the first two steps in a larger campaign. “I’ll just note that Scotland has just implemented free period products for everybody in the country, so maybe that’s step three,” she said.

She said the inclusion of diapers, an exceedingly large cost for many families and parenting students, would add up significantly over time.

“It’s always hard to forgo revenue, and we are absolutely dependent on our sales taxes in our budget,” she said. “I think this will have a minimal impact on our budget and a good impact on our families. So to me it is worth the exemption and it is absolutely equity-minded.”

School system spokesperson Taslin Alfonzo said the system could not provide an estimate of the revenue collected on products exempted from the pink tax.

Marie Fazio writes for The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate as a Report For America corps member. Email her at MFazio@theadvocate.com or follow her on Twitter @mariecfazio.

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