How did the Legislature’s budget compromise come to be?

Paul Braun and Tryfon Boukouvidis

As the Senate prepares to vote Sunday on a compromise to fund the state’s budget, ending a conundrum that has tormented lawmakers and citizens alike for the last three years, two Senate leaders reflected on how the deal came together and what lies ahead for Louisiana.

Committees led by the Democratic Sens. Eric LaFleur of Ville Platte and J.P. Morrell of New Orleans on Saturday approved bills that include the breakthrough terms that Gov. John Bel Edwards and the House agreed to on Friday.

Under that deal, the state will renew 0.45 percent of an expiring penny of sales tax for seven years and use an additional $466 million in revenue from that tax to fully fund TOPS scholarships and other parts of the state budget that had been vulnerable to cuts.

Read the story in The Shreveport Times.