On October 23, 2025, District Attorney Collin Sims and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Authement—through their new Tax Reduction and Stabilization Workgroup—gave a presentation on the St. Tammany Parish Mosquito Abatement District (STPMAD) to the GEC that lacked knowledge and understanding of our work in the community and our industry’s best practices, and purposefully misrepresented much of our budget and our agency’s needs. On this page, we’ll share our responses to this report, highlighting how our agency has worked to serve St. Tammany residents for more than 50 years with integrity, transparency, and high-quality mosquito treatment.
From STPMAD’s perspective, this report aims to take the vote and choice away from St. Tammany residents. The District Attorney’s office organized the group behind this report to take control of an agency that has received majority voter approval for decades, so they can choose where to re-direct your tax dollars to fill their own budget shortfalls. Redirection of dedicated funds will result in a notable loss of mosquito abatement service. We firmly believe our residents should decide where their spending goes, not the Parish.
STPMAD provides mosquito control and treatment services to the residents of the Parish by collecting a property tax that is voted on every ten years, with oversight by appointed volunteer commissioners. The revenue for Mosquito Abatement accounts for about 2% of the total property tax in St. Tammany. Just like other publicly funded agencies, STPMAD undergoes thorough financial and procedural audits. Check out our page – Where Do My Tax Dollars Go?
Our Responses to various aspects of the report are below. If you have additional questions regarding any of this, we invite you to reach out to us directly, and we will respond as soon as possible. Thank you.
Government Efficiency STPMAD Rebuttal – READ THE FULL REBUTTAL
At first glance it is obvious to note that $9.9 million collected for 2025 is greater than $8.5 million in 2019. However, this basic comparison does not consider inflation, particularly historic increases in costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the cumulative CPI from 2019 to 2025 was 26.7%. Meaning that what cost $1 in 2019 now costs $1.27. Given this inflationary rate the $8.5 million in 2019 is equivalent to $10.8 million. By this analysis, STPMAD has kept expenses lower than inflation, while at the same time expanding and modernizing services.
As of January 2025, STPMAD had $4.8 million in emergency reserve funds. The $13.6 million number being circulated from the 2024 financial audit includes both the $4.8 million reserve funds, as well as the $8.8 million the department is expected to receive in the year to come.
STPMAD has $40.4 million in assets. This is a sign of prudent financial responsibility, as we have assets four times the worth of a single year’s tax revenue. These assets have gained over time and allow our agency to deliver more high-quality services than could be achieved with one year’s revenue. These assets are all fully publicly owned, and we do not incur any debt or extra interest costs for the equipment. A breakdown of our assets can be seen below:
- Equipment Fleet – $10.5 million
- Insecticide Inventory – $2.3 million
- STPMAD Facilities – $14.2 million
- Cash and Reserve Funds – $13.4 million
Each month, STPMAD publishes a general report and a treasurer’s report which details the operational activities and the financials for the previous month. These reports, along with the minutes from each public board meeting, are emailed directly to each member of the parish council, the parish president, and several other political offices, as well as to any member of the public that requests them.
Further, these monthly reports are posted on our website. The minutes are also published in the official journal, the St. Tammany Parish Farmer. Our commitment to transparency is significant and sincere. We also invite residents and Parish officials to our annual open house event to learn more about the operations that are undertaken there.
If the council claims to not know what is “going on” financially or otherwise, this is due to their own lack of effort to read the emailed material provided each month.
The minutes are also published in the official journal, the St. Tammany Parish Farmer. Our commitment to transparency is significant and sincere. We also invite residents and Parish officials to our annual open house event to learn more about the operations that are undertaken there.
STPMAD’s attendance at certain educational conferences is required by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry once every three years to renew pesticide applicator’s licenses. Given the technical and scientific nature of the mosquito management industry, it is also best practice for senior level management and commissioners to attend national conferences to stay informed of current best practices.
Continuing our education within our industry surrounding modernization, improvement and efficiency is how we stay ready to deliver the fastest and highest-quality treatment and control for St. Tammany Parish.
As our community and the need for local mosquito control grows, so does our departmental need for appropriate space to do our work. STPMAD began construction on a new building in 2022 after experiencing various delays from COVID-19. This operations building was completed in 2024 and serves several purposes, including meeting the needs of our expanded vehicle fleet, expanding our laboratory to meet current safety standards, and training a staff of 40 employees.
- Fleet Expansion: Our old building had the capacity for just 44 vehicles, boats, and trailers. The new truck bay added 34 new parking spaces, as well as a new surface lot for staff’s personal parking. This allows us to safely store and protect STPMAD’s assets and staff vehicles.
- Expanded Lab: Our laboratory research need has grown over the years and therefore was expanded from 640 sq. ft to 1,934 sq. ft, which has allowed us to add new spaces for secured mosquito colonies for necessary testing and research purposes, as well as making critical safety upgrades like proper ventilation, which our old laboratory previously lacked.
- Training Capacity: Our previous existing meeting space was not equipped with sufficient capacity to functionally and safely seat all 35 of our daytime staff – something that became apparent during the COVID-19 emergency. Our new space allows us all to meet comfortably, as a team, for training, team updates and discussion, as well as host community events and external agency meetings.
- STPMAD uses two methods for laboratory testing—both in-house and at the LSU Diagnostic Library. At times, we will need to test mosquitoes in-house to reduce the turnaround time to provide immediate treatment on infected mosquitoes to quickly mitigate risk to residents.
- Turnaround time from mosquitoes collected in the field to test result at LSU is 4-9 days, while our in-house laboratory turns around results in just 4 hours. This is a vital tool for quick action to protect our people.
As we are a large parish with a wide-spread population, we have run into situations where road-based mosquito treatments fail to bring relief to the populations who live further away from access roads. Aerial application allows us to cover areas vehicles can’t reach.
Our airplane-applied insecticides can effectively cover ground in large blocks, while helicopter application helps us apply treatment to smaller, more irregular areas when we need selective application. We can also use the helicopter to apply insecticides designed to manage larval populations, a key tool in preventing mosquitos from becoming biting adults.
Like crop dusting and fire mitigation tactics, aerial application is commonplace and critical for mosquito abatement in areas, such as ours, where a less swift, effective or comprehensive approach could impact the health and comfort of our community constituents.
After thorough research and evaluation, the Mosquito Abatement Board of Commissioners determined that purchasing a helicopter was more cost-effective than contracting helicopter services. From 2018-2021, STPMAD contracted these services out at a rate of $4,685/hour. Owning our own helicopter has allowed us to have a new warranty and lower maintenance costs than using a helicopter with an unknown maintenance record and offers us the best return on investment overall. In addition – having access to our own equipment allows for swift and seamless mobilization, increasing our ability to do our necessary work efficiently. The process for the decision to purchase a helicopter was made beginning in 2018 and concluded with a public bid in 2021.
Helicopters are also more common than fixed wing airplanes in mosquito control due to their flexibility. Districts across Louisiana and Florida use helicopters extensively, and we are excited to offer that same quality of service to our residents.
At STPMAD, we are lucky to work with some of the most knowledgeable, effective, and leading researchers and staff members in the business. We value the top-quality work product that they bring to our agency and community every day. We aim to continue to onboard talented team members who bring immense value and top-notch expertise to our team and our community. Team members with notable education and credentials allow us to procure grants and contracts that offset their salaries, so we can pay fair compensation, commensurate with market rates, for their broad knowledge.
In accordance with best practices with the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, every five years Mosquito Abatement hires an independent consultant to perform a salary survey to provide context for wages. A salary survey was conducted in the summer of 2025 and ensured salaries were fair and within market rates.
At the end of the day, hiring a private contractor for mosquito control services costs more, and provides less services at a lower quality. Comparatively, a contractor would cost $120 per mosquito trap, while STPMAD pays $90.95. Truck treatment per acre would cost $85 with a contractor, instead of $41.45 through STPMAD.
The same is true for aeriel application. A cost estimate from the company Dynamic Aviation came in 32% higher than STPMAD’s cost to provide the same services, as it would cost $1.34/acre as opposed to STPMAD’s $0.91/acre.
Historically and since its inception, the STPMAD has depended upon the District Attorney’s office for legal review, advice and representation. Unfortunately, however, the DA’s office has made public remarks that disparage the District, including referring to it as a “fiefdom”, and has misrepresented information about the entity’s financial responsibility and management. The DA itself has admittedly investigated the district—it’s client—in a clear violation of its ethical duties as its attorney for the district. Due to this conflict of interest, the District requested the DA’s own recusal from representation and sought out external legal counsel.
As outlined in our state laws, mosquito abatement districts are meant to abate, control, eradicate, and study mosquitoes. STPMAD performs their mandate to study mosquitoes through sponsored research because new technologies and scientific information creates new efficiencies in mosquito management. The research we have funded has in part allowed us to understand whether mosquito populations have become resistant to certain insecticides. These routine evaluations save taxpayers money by ensuring that our treatments are in fact, having their intended effect.
STPMAD has used a Marsh Master to access, inspect and treat larval mosquito habitats in wetland areas since 1984. That original vehicle was maintained and used for 40 years but was ultimately sold at auction in 2024 when its maintenance exceeded its value. In 2024, STPMAD purchased a replacement, just as anyone would once a tool or piece of equipment reached the end of its lifecycle – similar to your own car.
STPMAD Total Budget ($9.3 million) vs. Jefferson Parish Budget ($5.7 million)
The main difference in need between St. Tammany and Jefferson Parish is size. St. Tammany is over 3.5 times larger than Jefferson, and our parish is much more rural. Because of our more spread-out population and suburban nature, we require more frequent and larger-area treatments. In fact, St. Tammany has one of the lowest prices per square mile for mosquito control at $11,092 per square mile, whereas Jefferson Parish sits at $19,309 per square mile.
Additionally, our unique diversity of habitats and structures contribute significantly to our mosquito control operations. Our coastal marsh, Lake Pontchartrain, swamps, clay soils, and polluted roadside ditches, all offer prime real estate for mosquitos, some of which Jefferson Parish doesn’t have.
In addition to mosquito control and treatment, a large part of our work here at Mosquito Abatement is disease control. St. Tammany has been a national hotspot for West Nile Virus—a mosquito-carried disease—since 2002 because of our unique environment. This requires careful identification, research, and treatment to protect the citizens of our parish.
