St. Charles Parish Industrial Development Board Meeting - July 27, 2026
St. Charles Parish Industrial Development Board Meeting - July 27, 2026
The Industrial Development Board of St. Charles Parish met on July 27, 2026 at 11:30 AM in the Council Chambers to review financial audits, discuss future use of accumulated funds, and give preliminary approval to a new payment-in-lieu-of-tax (PILOT) arrangement. All votes were unanimous.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes (December 22, 2025): Motion by Mr. Bosco, second by Mr. Colon. Approved unanimously.
- Approval of 2025 Financial Audit (Carr Riggs Ingram): Presented by Amy (auditor). Clean opinion with two improvement recommendations: formalize review of bank/general ledger reconciliations and record details of PILOT payments received and distributed. Audit accepted unanimously.
- Approval of Past Audit Fee Payments: Motion to reimburse the parish for audit fees from 2020 through 2024 (2025 already approved). Motion by Bobby, second by Billy. Approved unanimously.
- Resolution No. 2026-2 (Rio Morado LLC): Preliminary approval to negotiate a PILOT agreement for a $1.5 million warehouse improvement project (internal overhead cranes, machinery, equipment). Includes existing warehouse. Public hearing held with no comments. Motion by Ricky, second by Sam. Approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public addressed the board during either public hearing (audit or resolution).
Discussion Items
- 2025 Financial Audit Presentation: Amy from Carr Riggs Ingram summarized the audit. Key points:
- Clean opinion, no control or compliance deficiencies.
- Two improvement recommendations: formalize documentation of monthly bank/GL reviews and record PILOT payment flows in detail (now being addressed by parish finance).
- Cash and cash equivalents (including LAMP investments) increased slightly due to accumulation of administrative fees from three PILOT programs and higher interest income.
- Accounts receivable steady; no allowance needed (all collectible historically).
- Net assets without restriction are growing each year, reaching about $350,000 in 2026.
- Expenses rose slightly due to audit fee increase (still below standard rates).
- Provided supplementary breakdown of how PILOT payments were distributed to taxing districts for 2024 and 2025.
- Review of Financial Statement (Jan 1 – June 30, 2026): Presented showing checking account balance and LAMP (Louisiana Asset Management Pool) investment balances. Noted that the statement incorrectly showed
Meeting Transcript
All right. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. But everyone please rise for a moment of silent prayer, followed by the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, this is the July 27th, 2026 meeting of the Industrial Development Board of the Parish of St. Charles, Louisiana Incorporated. First item of business is the approval of the minutes of December 22nd, 2025. So we'll have a motion by Mr. Bosco. Second by Mr. Colon to approve the minutes to submit it. All those in favor signify by aye. Any opposed motion carried. Next item is a review of the financial audit 2025 by Carr Riggs Ingram. You can come up either to the table or the podium, whichever one you like. Okay, I think this one's on now. That was responsible for the 2025 audit. You've all got a copy of the audit as well as, or you were sent a copy of the audit previously. Right now you've got a copy of the presentation as well as some tax information. I'm gonna run through the presentation first and then we can talk about the tax information for just a quick second. Let's see. The summary of information, it was a clean opinion, meaning no significant issues. We had no control or compliance deficiencies. We did have two improvement points. One uh was the same as as last year, not an issue, but just a recommendation to formalize the review. I know there is a review that at least him, if not a few of you do, with the uh bank information, the general ledger information pretty regularly. It's not formalized that anybody actually does that review, so whether it's an email back to the finance department saying, you know, reviewed, approved, something like that, just some sort of documentation that it was reviewed. Um so that was one recommendation, and the second was that we realized that the actual pilot payments, while they are treated correctly, they come into IDB and then out to the parish to then be distributed to the taxing districts. Uh they weren't recorded in that detail in the general ledger. So again, just for even more transparency, just as a recommendation to make sure that gets recorded. I know that one pretty much is resolved because we've had conversations with the finance department, so they're making sure that that gets recorded uh as those come in. Then we can there's a few graphs in here just to kind of show you where things are. The first one is cash and cash equivalence. Uh the cash remaining fairly steady, uh went up a little bit, the lamp investments went up a little bit. The increase in both, I would expect to uh to see as well because of the it's basically an accumulation of the administrative rental fees that you get for those pilot programs. Um you've got three now, so it's the administration fees that come in while you all have maintained minimal expenses, so your revenue is higher than your expenses, so your investments in your cash go up a little bit every year. The next one is accounts receivable. Again, there was a big crease, uh big increase a couple of years ago when one of one of the new uh pilots came on, and then it should stay pretty stable now until you get another pilot program or until one of these um ends. And it's all there's no allowance for the receivables because it's all assumed to be collectable, and you haven't had any issues in the past with the collection of that. The next one is revenue again, a little bit of a change a few years ago with the admin fee. Uh little bit of change recently in interest income as interest rates go up, which is good if you're putting money in, not so good if you're borrowing. But since you guys are putting money in, uh, the interest income has gone up a little bit, so that's the reason for those increases. The expenses did have a bit of an increase from 24 to 25. That was largely due to an increase in the audit fee. Actually, we hadn't changed the audit fee. It's still pretty significantly below our standard rates. Um, but because of the relationship with the parish and the work that we do with the parish, we're able to keep it pretty low for you guys, but there was a little bit of an increase from 24 to 25. So that's the increase you see in expenses there. And then the last one is the net assets.
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