Business View Magazine - November 2016

Business View Magazine - November 2016 85 and our elevators an opportunity – a low-cost means, if you will – to reach the spring-wheat market of New Orleans.” While the Port is a public entity, overseen by a nine- member board, it is run like a business. “We are under a mandate, and have been since the day we opened, to operate in a financially solvent manner,” says Por- tiss. “We are not tax-supported. We receive no state appropriations; we receive no local tax money. In order to spend a buck, we have to earn a buck.” According to David Yarbrough, the Port’s Deputy Director, approxi- mately 70 percent of those bucks come from the rents that the Port’s tenants pay to operate their businesses on the site. “Besides our lease income, we have opera- tional income that comes from operating our two fleet- switching towboats, and our rail infrastructure, includ- ing three switch locomotives,” he adds. “And then, we get just a little bit from tollage and wharfage on every