December 2023

LOUISIANA MUNICIPAL ADVISORY AND TECHNICAL SERVICES
LaMATS Celebrates a Quarter-Century of Friendships
As LaMATS staff, consultants, and Board of
Directors put a bow on our 25th Anniversary
Year, we’d like to share a little of the
goodwill we’ve been fortunate to receive
since January from our friends across the
state. We consider the heartfelt thanks
and support of those we serve to be the
highest rewards for our work, and we’re
grateful for every opportunity to help
Louisiana’s local governments.
With the vision and support of LMA’s
1997/1998 Board of Directors and leadership
of then-Executive Director Gordon
King, LaMATS launched our inaugural and longest-running
service, the Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) collection program,
which now includes the majority of Louisiana municipalities
and returns tens of millions of dollars to public coffers each
year.
“LaMATS excels at maintaining
open lines of communication with
the City of New Orleans by keeping
everyone informed and on the
same page. [IPT Coordinator] Mary
Joseph has shown excellent leadership
in the managing of this project.”
- Patrice B. Lee-Fleming, Management
Specialist at City of New
Orleans
Throughout the years, LaMATS has worked to find timely
solutions to numerous municipal puzzles. We’ve developed
a whole suite of services to help with cities’ procurement of
goods and services through LaMATS Purchasing Services
(LPS). This year, we assisted
the Village of Norwood with
the renovation of their historic
bank building, which also
serves as Town Hall. Having received
a State Treasury grant,
Norwood was under a quick
deadline to get the project
completed. We helped them with their RFP, contractor selection,
and contracting guidance, a tremendous opportunity to
bring a lot of valuable services together.
“The Village of Norwood was awarded $235,000 to make repairs
to our old Town Hall building, which was built in 1904. We
were in a time crunch to use this money before the deadline. Not
knowing exactly how to handle this situation, I was advised to
call Paul Holmes at LaMATS. What a blessing that was! He immediately
took charge and guided us through the process. Without
his expertise, we would have been in a time
dilemma. We do appreciate Paul Holmes at
LaMATS for another service provided to the
Village of Norwood, as well as all the municipalities
associated with LMA.” - The Hon.
Rebecca Bellue, Mayor, Norwood
We’ve helped local governments retain
every penny possible of local revenues,
whether from license fees, utility contracts,
or rusty piles of scrap metal. With
our Surplus Property Program just fifteen
months old, we’ve already hit the $1 million
mark in sales of decommissioned municipal
vehicles, construction equipment, technology assets,
and real estate, through our online platform partner Gov-
Deals. That’s a million dollars back in the budgets of Louisiana
local governments!
“…with hands-on,
ongoing support
and simple-to-use
reporting system,
our sellers and
partners like LaMATS consistently see higher returns than traditional
auction methods.” - John Littler, Sr. Manager, GovDeals
Helping municipalities recover property
tax revenue and valuable real estate
through brownfields remediation is one
of our newest areas of service. Now two
years running, the LaMATS Brownfields
Program, in partnership with Louisiana
DEQ, has offered a particularly rewarding
way to make positive impacts all
across the state.
“LaMATS has served as
the conduit to bring together
public, private,
nonprofit, and governmental
entities; and for
the first time in more than
a decade, Louisiana is getting funded for brownfields projects.
That is entirely because of LaMATS efforts… LaMATS has created
a unique awareness and advocacy for the State’s Brownfields
program. They’ve been able to provide the
technical competency so that smaller municipalities
can apply. And to be fair, those
are the ones that typically will need the
most help. And so, LaMATS advocacy work
has really opened the door for communities
all over the state. That’s really a testa-
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LMR | DECEMBER 2023