2 weeks Ago
The Louisiana state flag pictured in Port Allen on Thursday, April 3, 2025. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save An audit of Port Allen for the fiscal year ending June 2024 was one of the city's worst in recent years, Mayor Terecita Pollard Pattan said. The report showed the city did not comply with the Louisiana Open Meetings Law and identified several issues with financial organization.
“All I can do is try to change things, implement different policies in place going forward,” Pattan, who was not yet in office during the time covered by the audit, said to the public at a Port Allen City Council meeting last week. The audit, conducted by Ericksen Krentel, revealed that the city violated the Open Meetings Law by failing to post minutes on its website within 10 days of public meetings from May through October 2024. The Open Meetings Law exists to “ensure state integrity and to increase the public’s trust and awareness of its governing officials,” according to a summary created by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor .
Material weaknesses highlighted in the auditor’s report included utility billing and payroll processes for city employees. The city undercharged residents for garbage collection despite rising costs, the audit said, and one city employee was being paid while not submitting necessary time records. In noncompliance issues outside of the Open Meetings Law, Port Allen neglected to amend a low-income housing budget when it exceeded planned expenditures by more than 5% and was late in providing an annual financial report to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.
“You all need to have relevant, timely information to be able to make decisions,” Tani Budde, senior manager at Ericksen Krenstel, told the City Council. “This is a nonnegotiable. This is a basic minimum requirement to be able to do what you need to do.
” This year was the “messiest” Budde has seen since he started working on the Port Allen audit in 2018, he said. “This one was bad,” Budde said. “I don’t know another way to say it, and I wish I was more optimistic.
” Pattan said she will focus on holding departments accountable going into the next audit. She was not mayor during the period in question, she added. “I was an employee,” Pattan said in an interview.
“I didn’t have that authority to get anything done or hold them to the fire, but going forward, hopefully, we’ll get all that rectified.”.
