KEY TAKEAWAYS:

St. Helena Parish lost $48,348 in ARPA funds via vendor-payment fraud, fully recovered through insurance.

St. Charles Parish lost over $1.26 million in a cyberattack ; about $404,000 remains unrecovered.

Audits revealed weaknesses in internal controls and vendor payment procedures.

Parishes are implementing stricter security measures, employee training, and automated fraud detection tools.

Two Louisiana parish governments were recently hit by cyberattacks that diverted more than $1.3 million in public funds , according to new reports from the state legislative auditor.

In separate independent audits, St. Helena Parish Police Jury and St. Charles Parish government were identified as victims of vendor-payment fraud schemes that exploited weaknesses in local inter

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