FRANKLIN — The St. Mary Parish Council is banking on a Holdenville, Okla., company to help it boost sales and use tax revenues, which in 2007 were $37.272 million.

The council recently inked a $348,000 deal with Visual Lease Services to re-evaluate oil and gas drilling property currently operating on parish land.

The company’s fee will be split in an intergovernmental agreement between the Parish Council, the St. Mary Parish School Board and the St. Mary Parish Assessor’s Office, with the parish bearing the brunt of the cost, $163,908, followed by the School Board paying $133,980, the sheriff, $40,020 and the assessor $10,092.

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Already, St. Mary Parish Assessor Sherel Martin said Visual Lease Services found an additional $3 million in unreported property in Terrebonne Parish in two oil fields.

However, Martin said there is no guarantee the company will discover anything during its work with St. Mary.

But Gary Mask of Visual Lease Services said his company has “consistently discovered omitted and undervalued properties in all the taxing jurisdictions that we have completed projects for in the past.”

Mask said the company is in the “discovery process” in Plaquemines Parish, and the initial findings are following the same pattern as in other taxing areas. He said in one instance, a company reported 30 miles of pipeline. However, Visual Lease has recently discovered an additional 30 miles of pipeline with a value in excess of $3 million, two compressors worth more than $1.5 million and a processing unit with a market value in excess of $3 million.

“This is just one example of one company,” Mask said. “There are other companies that we are finding with similar types of properties and varying market values.”

Visual Lease Services, founded in 1958 under the name of GEM Surveys, has worked in 35 counties throughout Oklahoma, where it has discovered $6 billion in omitted or undervalued properties, and in Colorado where it has discovered $200 million in omitted or undervalued properties.

Martin said in St. Mary Parish, oil and gas field property assessments are levied based on self-reporting forms turned in by the oil and gas companies. About 85 percent of St. Mary’s 1,200 wells are in water.

“But those forms are never checked against the actual inventory out there,” he said.

In 2007, sales and use tax figures show the St. Mary Parish School Board garnering $14.398 million, the Parish Council $17.512 million, the sheriff’s office $4.283 million and the assessor’s office $1.078 million.

“I’m not sure they’re going to find that in St. Mary Parish, but we can be optimistic,” Martin said.

Mask said the company’s strategy includes locating oil equipment and determining whether it is subject to ad valorem property tax, value it, map it and then provide the information to the parish assessor’s office.

The first step to this method includes setting up a global positioning satellite system for all oil wells and operations in the parish. The second step is to go to the courthouse and get the last three years of tax assessments from the assessor.

The third step is the actual physical inspection of all oil field equipment, well by well, property by property. This includes listing and taking photos of all of the equipment.