By Rose Velazquez
BATON ROUGE — Lawmakers in a town hall forum at the LSU Law Center Thursday night suggested that higher education’s current monetary vulnerability might be solved by taking its funding process off the perennial legislative chopping block through constitutional changes.
By Sarah Gamard and Caitie Burkes
BATON ROUGE — Although the funding cards have not always being dealt in their favor, the heads of departments of Natural Resources (DNR) and Wildlife and Fisheries (DWF) remain optimistic about their respective fortunes in the forthcoming fiscal year, the House subcommittee on Infrastructure and Resources was told Thursday.
By Sarah Gamard and Caitie Burkes
More than half of Louisiana’s residents favor raising taxes to support transportation infrastructure. The state is in need of federal transportation funds, but recent events show it is unclear when or if the state will get any.
By Caitie Burkes & Carrie Grace Henderson
BATON ROUGE — Last year, the Louisiana Legislature approved its annual laundry list of capital expenditures projects for state agencies and municipalities. Upon revisiting the list Tuesday (March 28), members of the House Ways and Means Committee issued a warning: Many are not going to make it.
By Sam Karlin
Gov. John Bel Edwards on Wednesday unveiled a far-reaching tax plan to fix a $1.2 billion fiscal precipice the state is approaching next year, calling for a striking departure from how businesses are currently taxed and cutting income taxes for most Louisiana residents.
By Caitie Burkes
BATON ROUGE – The Tobacco Settlement Financing Corp.’s (TSFC) total assets decreased from $145 million to $118 million in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, according to a financial statement presented to the board this past week. The cause: fewer cigarettes being bought.
By Sam Karlin
Most Louisiana residents want lawmakers to use a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to solve the state’s recurring budget problems, according to The Louisiana Survey 2017 by LSU’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs.
The survey, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, found a majority of the public supports raising taxes for specific areas, like education, health care and infrastructure, instead of cutting spending on those areas, but there was less support for specific changes to personal income and sales taxes.
By Sarah Gamard
By Rose Velazquez
Louisiana students, technically as young as kindergarteners, who bring toy guns to school could face criminal penalties if House Bill 43, pre-filed by Rep. Dodie Horton, R Haughton, passes the 2017 Legislature when it convenes April 10.
The bill would ban the possession of “imitation firearms, projectiles or ammunition” in Louisiana schools, at school-sponsored events or within 1,000 feet of campuses. It includes BB guns, firearm replicas, CO2 propellant guns and other firearm devices that are “substantially similar in coloration and overall appearance to an existing firearm as to lead a reasonable person to perceive that the device is a firearm.”
By Sarah Gamard
New Orleans’ smoking ban has driven Harrah’s customers away.
That was the argument on Tuesday (March 22) from Caesars Entertainment, the global casino enterprise that owns Harrah’s New Orleans Casino & Hotel. But Cynthia Hallett, president and CEO for Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, called those accusations “baseless.”
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 