Terrebonne still growing

Despite the recent oil and gas downturn, a finance firm ranked Terrebonne Parish’s economy among the best in Louisiana.

SmartAsset, a finance technology company from New York, released a report naming the top ten parishes by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth over the last two years. Terrebonne Parish came in at the tenth spot.

Katherine Gilbert-Theriot, marketing manager of Terrebonne Parish’s Economic Development department, said via e-mail that the ranking is a testament to the parish’s economy.

“It’s a very positive indicator of how Terrebonne’s economy was performing prior to the downturn in oil-and-gas. It shows that the parish was growing in a healthy manner and attracting new investment,” Gilbert-Theriot wrote.

Pat Gordon, director of Planning and Zoning in Terrebonne Parish, says the downturn has slowed down the economy, but not crippled it.

“Previously the economy was great, it was excellent back in 2014. Now it’s somewhat good, it’s a good economy,” Gordon said. “We’re second in the state in unemployment right now, but we were number one for quite some time between us and Lafayette. Although the economy has slowed down some, it’s still very viable and moving ahead.”

Among the top ten parishes listed for GDP growth, Terrebonne had the fifth-most new building permits per 1,000 homes. Terrebonne had 5.8 permits per 1,000 homes, while the Louisiana average was 5.3. Gordon says that though construction has slowed down in some areas, in commercial terms it has stood strong against the downturn.

“We’ve seen a slowdown in single-family residential construction. But the commercial development has been very steady. In our growth corridors along Martin Luther King, we’ve seen a steady growth,” Gordon said.

The parish had a very low ratio of bond debt per capita, according to SmartAsset. Terrebonne Parish owes only $97 in municipal bonds for each citizen in the parish, while the state average among parishes was $655. Parish President Michel Claudet said the Terrebonne government does not need to take on additional debt to function.

“If we don’t have to issue bonds and borrow money to do what we need, then I don’t understand why we would just go out and borrow,” Claudet said.

Parish officials say that Terrebonne has taken great steps toward making its economy less dependent on the oil and gas industry. According to Claudet, the parish has worked on diversifying the economy for the last 25 years. Gilbert-Theriot said that health care industry growth in the region has helped to make Terrebonne a destination for quality health care. Aside from that, other businesses are trying to provide services to places other than the oilfields.

“Companies have also worked to diversify within themselves to serve more sectors than only oil-and-gas with their employees’ skill sets, allowing fabrication into the wind sector, supply to municipal systems and build vessels for the federal government, as well as serving markets other than the Gulf of Mexico,” Gilbert-Theriot said.

Gordon, who worked in economic development during the 1980s, says that today’s economic figures are evidence of the parish’s efforts.

“I was in charge of economic development back in the 80s, when Terrebonne Parish was at 26 percent unemployment,” Gordon said. “The diversification that’s been done since those times is a direct reflection of today, that we’re only at 6 percent unemployment. So the oil and gas industry can take a downturn, and it won’t have as big an impact as it would have back in the 80s.”