Authorizes creation of the Pilot Innovation Hub in certain parishes. (8/1/26) (OR SEE FISC NOTE LF EX)

Senate Bill 384 creates a new statutory authorization in Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 38 Section 2211.3 allowing parishes with populations between 350,000 and 410,000 persons to designate themselves as a Pilot Innovation Hub. The legislation establishes a framework whereby these parishes can validate innovative technologies designed to address public challenges including flooding, water management, subsidence, infrastructure, energy resilience, maritime logistics, and coastal restoration. The innovation hub mechanism permits designated parishes to enter memoranda of understanding with anchor organizations that have demonstrated experience in structuring cross-sector programs and managing technology pilots, and authorizes the use of public property and associated permitting authorities for deploying and testing these technologies.

The practical effect of this legislation is to create a pathway for innovation-tested businesses to receive sole-source contracts from the parish governing authority, bypassing standard competitive procurement procedures. After a technology successfully completes a pilot program documented by a comprehensive performance report demonstrating that the technology meets the stated goals and does not adversely affect safety, the parish may award a sole-source contract to the innovator without competitive bidding, provided the parish gives public notice and allows a thirty-day protest period and the business maintains dedicated operations within the state. This provision affects parishes in the specified population range, anchor organizations that partner with parishes to manage pilots, start-up companies and technology developers seeking market validation and procurement opportunities, and the residents and agencies of these parishes who would benefit from validated solutions to public infrastructure and environmental challenges.

The bill operates within Louisiana's existing procurement framework codified in Title 38 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes and explicitly excludes professional services from the sole-source contracting authority by reference to R.S. 38:2318.1. The legislation recognizes that business growth and technology commercialization serve the state's broader economic development objectives and establishes innovation hubs as a mechanism aligned with an all-of-government approach to addressing budgetary constraints while promoting state economic competitiveness. The requirement for public notice and a protest period provides procedural safeguards within the otherwise competitive-bidding-exempt process, maintaining transparency in the award of sole-source contracts that would otherwise be unavailable under standard procurement law.