The Iberia Parish School Board voted to send a request from Bagwell Energy Services for the continuation of the company’s industrial tax exemption back to Louisiana Economic Development at Wednesday’s meeting.

The board voted on April 10 to discontinue the ITEP program for Bagwell Energy following several years of the company not meeting its projected growth and expectations in terms of employees and salaries. Both are crucial for the ITEP program.

Bagwell Energy owner Roger Bagwell was present at the meeting, and said the failure to meet those goals was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which completely changed the industry.

“We did a proposal that stated we’d have up to 125 to 130 working there by 2022,” Bagwell said. “We didn’t quite make it and the reason why we fell short was that we had a problem with COVID.”

After pleading his case in Baton Rouge, Bagwell said he was told to get a decision from the school board, who is in charge of approving industrial tax exemptions along with the Iberia Parish Council and Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

The board voted last month to discontinue the ITEP exemption for Bagwell Energy following the violations, but Bagwell said he was asking for a renegotiation of the program in order to give reasonable expectations in light of the pandemic.

Further complicating the issue is changes being made to the program by Gov. Jeff Landry, who issued an executive order in February that loosened the regulations for the ITEP program. Those changes do not apply to Bagwell Energy because the agreement was signed prior to the executive order, however.

“We want to go forward and reassess the program, we can work that up for you and give it to you for consideration,” Bagwell said at the meeting.

Board member Dana Dugas said the state should be the one to make any decisions on the future of the program with Bagwell Energy.

“Why don’t we let him renegotiate it (in Baton Rouge)?” Dugas asked. “They put it on local government to be the bad guys, why don’t we send it back so they can be the bad guys or good guys?”

The board largely agreed, voting to send the issue back to Baton Rouge.