Oil & gas company’s decreased production leads to loss of value
– The St. Martin Parish Government will receive about the same amount of property tax revenues as it did last year, assessor Todd Dugas told the St. Martin Parish Council this past Tuesday at its regular meeting.
“Compared to last year we’re almost dead even,” Dugas said. “Last year the taxes were $51,671,351. This year it’s $51,883,708.”
Normally those numbers would rise with new tax assessments, but most of that loss of potential tax valuation came from one company, Bayou Bouillon, which operates oil and gas wells in the Atchafalaya Basin.
“They went from paying last year $1.15 million in taxes to $54,000,” Dugas said. “And their assessment is based on production, so for some reason they shut off production this year. We don’t know why but the numbers we got lowered it that much. We had picked up about $10 million in assessed value in the parish, but that really knocked us back because it was a little over $10 million on that assessment alone on assessed values. So that was what kept us from having some gains. Hopefully next year some of the oil and gas picks up again. We really don’t know what it’s due to.”
Other than that assessment, values gained slightly everywhere else with steady improvements in residential and commercial buildings, with land values going up.
Inventory values in the parish rose about $8 million in assessed values, he said.
A state amendment is on the ballot on April 18, 2026, that would allow parishes to exempt business inventory from property taxes. If passed, individual parishes could reduce inventory taxes or create an exemption from business inventory from property taxes. Business inventory would include property being held to sell and property held to be used in the production of a good that would be sold.
Dugas said the parish would have to decide whether to collect inventory taxes if the amendment passes.
“It’s about $2.5 million to parish government itself if we don’t collect inventory tax,” Dugas said. “It’s a lot of money but then you’ve got to look sometimes, if all the other parishes quit collecting it, and we’re the only ones that collect that inventory tax, nobody’s going to want to do business in our parish. We’ll see how the vote turns out.”
The council later passed a resolution assenting to the assessor’s recommendation that the assessment remains as shown on the assessment rolls.
Board of Adjustment The council ruled to show cause to address a nuisance property at 1010 Guidry Drive, Breaux Bridge, owned by Jordan Landry, and proceeded with an order of condemnation and abatement on the property.
Planning and zoning director Morgan Allemond said the parish had sent a certified letter to the owner, who lives out of parish, and that the property had been mowed and a tree cut down but the structure on the property had not been fixed or torn down.
Councilwoman Tangie Narcisse asked what constitutes a nuisance property, and if it only took a complaint from a neighbor for a property to be ruled a nuisance. She asked if that meant property owners could be forced to make changes to their property just to satisfy a neighbor’s complaint.
“When it’s a dwelling, what expectations should the property owner have to meet?” she asked. “If I just don’t want to fix it up and I just want it like that, can we make them put a roof? I’ve just never had it explained or read it in black and white to the point of ‘this is the standards it needs to be.’ If the owners want to leave the structures as is for whatever reason, whether the neighbor likes it or not.”
Council
Parish attorney Lee Durio said that a nuisance property is defined in Chapter 24 of the parish Code of Ordinances.
“Without reading it verbatim, you want to look at, does it reflect debris, scrap, trash, machinery, which we have all that defined under the definitions of Ordinance 24:1,” he said. “Would it devalue other neighbors’ property? Does it harbor animals?
“Is it liveable? Is it in deplorable condition? Is it decrepit? When we take them and go to court, we tell them it’s not beautification, it’s compliance with the ordinances.”
An order of abatement basically tells the owner to get rid of the nuisance. That could mean fixing the structure so that it complies with parish ordinance, which could be very expensive in some cases, or it could mean tearing down the structure. That decision is left to the owner but the order means the owner must comply with parish ordinances one way or the other. At times that means taking the owner to court, or the owner taking the parish to court to fight the order.
“Y’all’s order of condemnation specifically is ‘fix the nuisance,’” Durio said. “Make it not a nuisance anymore.”
Councilwoman Carla JeanBatiste asked if the Planning and Zoning department had any communication with the landowner.
Allemond said they had sent a certified letter and received notification that it had been received, but the owner had not responded to the letter.
The council met as a board of adjustment and granted exceptions to zoning ordinances for several properties, including:
• to Kirk. D. Guilbeaux to move a single family dwelling on property zoned I-1 (Light Industrial) at 1735 Old Spanish Trail Highway Lot A, St. Martinville; z
• to Rebekah Delmas to move a single family dwelling on property zoned I-1 (Light Industrial) at 1735 Old Spanish Trail Highway Lot A, St. Martinville;
• to Kamin Hess to move a single family mobile home on property zoned C-1 (Light Commercial) at 4358 Main Highway, Breaux Bridge.
Resolutions
The parish council passed several resolutions, including two for change orders for a lower cost on work done by contractors.
The first decrease of $94,814 was for the Box Car Road roadside stabilization and road repairs project by Diverse Solutions.
The second decrease of $2,691.05 was for the St. Martin Consolidated Waterworks District NO. 4 Water Sector Program Contract 5A (distribution system isolation valves project) by Co-D Construction of Louisiana.
The council also passed a resolution to hire Maraist and Maraist Certified Public Accountants to conduction the annual audit for the year 2025.
The council voted for a resolution to the state Department of Transportation and Development indicating highway construction priorities, amending the resolution to include Theobald Road. Parish President Pete Delcambre explained the road had been removed from the list because money from another road project in the district was made available to raise the level of Theobald Road.
Councilman David Poirier said that he was concerned because the road was the main way residents of the Cypress Island area had to leave during a recent flood, and even that road was under water. The road was added back into the resolution to see if state funds could be obtained for the work.
A resolution asking the Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry to reinstate Aquaspersions North America Ltd.’s participation in the Industrial Tax Exemption Program also passed a vote by the council.
The council also ratified submission of state Capital Outlay Budget requests for the year 2026-27.
The council passed a resolution declaring Nov. 11 as Veterans Day in the parish.
Other resolutions called for $149,000 to be used from the emergency funds for amounts exceeding the mosquito control budget; and for signing an amendment to the master agreement for ground ambulance service from Acadian Ambulance Services.
