Ascension Parish finance team achieves GFOA Triple Crown; Martinez Pavilion named
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Ascension Parish finance team achieves GFOA Triple Crown; Martinez Pavilion named
The council named the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center’s Barns 7 and 8 Martinez Pavilion after Mayola Gautreau Martinez. Martinez was a lifelong parish resident from 1921 to 2013 and the mother of former Parish President Tommy Martinez. Former Chief Financial Officer Patrick Goldsmith praised the finance department’s transparency and the achievement of the Triple Crown Award. The parish had incidents of misappropriation of public assets, which were self-reported to the legislative auditor and required to be in the audit.. The council heard a presentation from Faulk & Winkler for the 2024 audit of the parish, which will be released in the coming months. The city of Gonzales, Louisiana, is the site of the Louisiana State Fair, which runs through the end of the year. It is located off Hwy. 30 near Interstate 10 in Gonzales and is open to the general public.
The council named the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center’s Barns 7 and 8 Martinez Pavilion after Mayola Gautreau Martinez, mother of former Parish President Tommy Martinez.
Former Chief Financial Officer Patrick Goldsmith praised the finance department’s transparency and the achievement of the Triple Crown Award.
The Ascension Parish Council recognized the parish’s finance department for receiving the Government Finance Officers Association Triple Crown Award and named a pavilion at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in honor of the late Mayola Gautreau Martinez.
The honors occurred during the June 26 meeting held at the governmental annex in Gonzales.
The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center’s Barns 7 and 8 will be known as Martinez Pavilion in honor of Martinez, who was a lifelong parish resident from 1921 to 2013 and the mother of former Parish President Tommy Martinez.
“I just want to say how much I deeply appreciate this, how much my family appreciates it,” Martinez said. “If my mother was here, she would probably cook y’all supper tonight. She was a person who was forgiving and never had a bad word to say about anyone. She loved Lamar-Dixon the way I do and it’s fitting that her name would be put on a pavilion there.”
He went on to say he appreciated the work of the council, reminiscing about the purchase of the expo center, located off Hwy. 30 near Interstate 10 in Gonzales.
“It was something I thought for the future of Ascension Parish needed to be done, for the children of the parish and the future,” Martinez said. “Look what it’s grown into now. It’s beyond what we ever thought it would be.”
In addressing the finance department’s award, Parish President Clint Cointment announced he had invited a special guest to speak about the honor, surprising the team with former Chief Financial Officer Patrick Goldsmith.
He has been serving as the deputy commissioner of administration for the State of Louisiana for the last year and a half.
“I don’t think people really appreciate what it takes to get an award like this,” Goldsmith said. “It’s been three separate awards. Yes, we have had the excellence in financial reporting for the last 15 years, we’ve had the distinguished budgeting award for the last 13 years, but the popular report was always the tough one. And I couldn’t be prouder from looking online at the document. If you have not seen it, you really need to go online and look at it. It is the document that summarizes everything.”
He went on to say, “the transparency for Ascension Parish is just head and shoulders above everybody else.”
Goldsmith added that just one other government entity in Louisiana has achieved the triple crown.
According to the GFOA website, Lafayette Consolidated Government was the only other entity in the state awarded.
He credited Chief Financial Officer Dawn Caballero and Assistant Treasurer Amanda Berot for their time and effort.
“When I was here and called away, it was tough to leave,” Goldsmith said. “It really was, but I knew the people here were so amazing that the parish was going to just keep thriving.”
Caballero thanked Goldsmith and the council for the recognition.
“This is an amazing group of women I work with every day,” Caballero said. “They’re wonderful. I’m so blessed and honored to work with them. Thank you all for everything you do for us.”
Additionally, the council heard a presentation from Faulk & Winkler for the 2024 audit.
The parish had incidents of misappropriation of public assets, which were self-reported to the legislative auditor.
One involved work on private land and the other pertained to an employee using a vehicle for personal use.
Though the incidents were caught internally, it was required to be in the audit.
Gonzales Weekly Citizen and Donaldsonville Chief, part of the USA Today Network of Louisiana, cover Ascension Parish and the greater Baton Rouge area. Follow at facebook.com/WeeklyCitizen and facebook.com/DonaldsonvilleChief.