PICTURED: The Port’s Finance Team (L-R) Lenora Davis, Celeste Deslatte, Kim Landry, Grant Faucheux (Finance Director), Lupe Torres, Lori Warner, Cleo Wainwright
A recently completed audit keeps financials transparent for stakeholders. Independent audits are an essential part of financial reporting for Port of South Louisiana, where a wealth of economic development resources and pioneering intermodal transportation lines foster growing relationships with major ports integral to the complex global trade market.
The Port is an independent subdivision of the state of Louisiana governed by a Board of Commissioners consisting of nine members appointed for a four-year term. The Port is reported as a stand-alone entity, and does not provide financial benefits on local government nor impose financial burdens. For this reason, the Port’s funds are accounted for as an enterprise fund — a self-supporting government fund that sells goods and services to the public for a fee.
Professional accounting corporation Kushner LaGraize, LLC, recently completed the newest audit for the Port. It is their job to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements and other supporting information are free of material misstatement. The past several years have seen successful audits, and this report is no different. This is largely due to the Port’s Finance Department, which keeps meticulous financial records to allow for the audits to be completed smoothly.
Before his current post as Executive Director of the Port, Paul Aucoin served on the board of supervisors for the University of Louisiana system that governed nine universities in the state. Aucoin served as Chairman of the Audit Committee and is a firm believer that “the audit is the vital sign of the entity. A good audit means you have a healthy entity and a bad audit means you have an unhealthy entity. We have a healthy port, and I’m proud of that,” Aucoin said.
Paul added that auditors Kuschner LaGraize praised the Port’s Finance Department for the thorough work they contributed to the audit.
“I would like to commend Port Finance Director Grant Faucheux and his staff on the wonderful job they did and do on a daily basis in managing the Port’s finances,” Aucoin said.
The independent auditor’s report, on public record, highlights several wins for the Port in the fiscal year ending April 2018. The Port had a net increase of approximately $5.8M. The Port’s total operating revenue increased by three percent to approximately $15.7M and total operating expenses decreased by six percent to approximately $15.1M. The report sites an increase in dockage, wharfage and rental revenues as the cause for this upswing.
The audit is conducted in compliance with accounting principles accepted in the United States and represented in a 60-page report inclusive of the independent auditor’s analysis, port management’s discussion and analysis, financial statements and additional supplementary information about pensions. The financial statements provide both long-term and short-term information about the Port, and are prepared on an accrual basis aligned with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (GAAP) as applied to governmental units.
