Author: manshipxgr

Published: April 24, 2023

By: Claire Sullivan and Oscar Tickle, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. —Legislative committees advanced bills Monday to eliminate a key corporate tax, reduce sales taxes and extend tax incentives for the movie industry.

If the bills become law, they would cut state revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when many legislators are already worried that the state could be facing another fiscal cliff.

Other bills that moved forward Monday would reinstate an annual three-day sales tax holiday for purchases of guns and ammunition, provide $5 million in tax incentives for crisis pregnancy centers and exempt prescription drugs and insulin from local sales tax.

The committee actions came after the Louisiana House Conservative Caucus, which has 42 members, and the House Freedom Caucus announced they would oppose raising a cap on state spending to pay for recurring items.

Read more at KTBS

Published: April 20, 2023

By: Oscar Tickle, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–The House Ways and Means Committee advanced a proposal for a constitutional amendment that would sharply increase the cap on the share of severance tax revenue that each parish can keep.

If voters across the state approve the change, the new annual cap would be $10 million for each parish, up from about $1.1 million now. Eighteen parishes in various parts of the state would benefit the most, across to legislative analysts.

The proposal would cost the state $46.9 million over five years, according to the analysts.

The committee passed that proposal Wednesday along with another bill, sponsored by Rep. Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, that would reduce the state’s severance tax rate on oil from 12.5% to 8.5% in half-percent increments until fiscal year 2032.

Read more at the Houma Times

Published: April 19, 2023

By: Gabby Jimenez and Claire Sullivan | LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — The House Civil Law and Procedure Committee moved forward a bill that would allow mothers to recuperate half of the out-of-pocket, pregnancy-related medical expenses from the father of their child.

After the baby is born, the mother would have two years to recover these expenses, which would not include costs covered by insurance. Under present law, women have no avenue for this action.

“I think this is a very good bill to really help the pregnant women in our state who have no way to recover these medical expenses,” said Rep. Lawrence “Larry” Frieman, R-Abita Springs, the bill’s author.

The bill requires that paternity be proven by clear and convincing evidence, with the burden of proof requiring paternity to be more likely true than untrue.

Read more at WWLTV

Published: April 19, 2023

By: Molly Ryan, LSU Manship School News Service

Rep. Richard Nelson suspended his proposal to eliminate the state income tax after discussing it this week with skeptical lawmakers at a House Ways and Means Committee meeting.

Instead, Nelson, R-Mandeville, will likely make his proposal the linchpin of his run for governor this year.

His plan includes phasing out the personal income tax and corporate franchise tax over the next four years while eliminating various tax exemptions.

It also would reduce the state’s portion of the Minimum Foundation Program formula that funds K-12 education and reduce state spending in other areas to offset any lost revenue.

Lawmakers said his proposal is unlikely to receive further attention this session.

Read more at WWNO

Published: April 19, 2023

By: Caden Lim, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – The Senate Committee on Health and Welfare advanced a bill Tuesday to require Louisiana operating rooms to have equipment to remove harmful surgical smoke plumes.

The bill’s author, Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, said operating-room patients emit “surgical smoke plume,” or actual smoke, when treated with a heat-generating device. He said the smoke “is prevalent in operating rooms across the state” and is extremely harmful if inhaled.

Boudreaux said “evacuation system” refers to devices that filter and remove the chemicals in the smoke.

Committee members voiced no resistance in advancing the bill, Senate Bill 29. It will need further legislative approvals to become law.

Read more at Shreveport Times

Published: April 13, 2023

By: Molly Ryan, LSU Manship News Service

Conservative Louisiana lawmakers’ concerns about spending some of the state’s surplus on teacher pay raises are already stirring up controversy this session.

Education State Superintendent Cade Brumley told the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday that the department’s budget proposal would give an initial $2,000 pay raise to teachers and $1,000 to support workers as outlined in Gov. John Bel Edwards’ budget.

Edwards wants all K-12 teachers to receive an additional $1,000, bringing the total to $3,000, if state revenue projections increase in May.

If that additional revenue becomes available, the Education Department’s proposal, however, calls for putting it into a pool that could be divided differently among teachers. Brumley suggested that teachers in hard-to-fill positions like special education, math and science might receive anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 on top of the basic $2,000 raise.

Read more at Louisiana Illuminator

Published: April 13, 2023

By: Gabby Jimenez, LSU Manship School News Service

State officials are trying to figure out how to remedy a decline in TOPS scholarship participation throughout the state.

The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, known as TOPS, is a merit-based scholarship funded by the state. The program offers scholarships to Louisiana residents attending public colleges, universities or vocational schools in the state.

Kim Hunter Reed, Louisiana’s commissioner on higher education, spoke to the House Committee on Appropriations Thursday about the declining participation numbers.

As the number of high school graduates in the state has declined, so has the number of eligible TOPS recipients, Reed said. Acceptance rates for TOPS scholarship have also seen a decline, she said.

Read more at Louisiana Illuminator

Published: April 12, 2023

By: Molly Ryan and Jenna Bridges, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE–The House Appropriations Committee discussed Tuesday expanding the budgets for youth, corrections and public safety services as state officials expressed a need to address employee turnover rates through higher salaries.

Corrections Department Secretary James LeBlanc underscored the stressful, difficult work his staff does and noted that shots have recently been fired at probation officers.

Col. Lamar Davis, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said Louisiana is short 166 state troopers. He believes the state needs to make trooper salaries more competitive, citing that Louisiana’s starting pay for troopers is lower than in neighboring states like Mississippi.

“We have some very good, very smart people out there with good hearts, but we have to pay them,” he said.

Read more at Biz Magazine

Published: April 10, 2023

By: Molly Ryan, LSU Manship School News Service

Gov. John Bel Edwards joined lawmakers at the start of the regular session Monday to outline his agenda in his final state of the state address and call on lawmakers to give pay raises of $3,000 to teachers and $1,500 to support workers.

The state has a $1.6 billion surplus due to floods of federal relief money and increased revenue from a temporary 0.45 percent sales tax increase. One of the big debates this session will be whether to raise the state’s spending limit, which will influence how much of that surplus money is spent and where it goes.

During his address, Edwards reflected on his eight years in office, noting he had inherited a $2 billion deficit in 2016 and will leave behind $2 billion in emergency savings for his successor in addition to the $1.6 billion surplus this year.

Edwards also struck a personal tone to advocate again for legislation that he framed as pro-life, including paid family and medical leave, equal pay, exceptions for rape and incest with abortion and an end to the death penalty.

Read more at WRKF

Published: April 5, 2023

By: LSU Manship School News Service

Nine students from LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication and the
Southern University Law Center won a national investigative reporting prize this week for
stories re-examining the shooting deaths of two Southern students by a sheriff’s deputy in 1972.

The prize–for the best investigative work in 2022 by students at large universities–was awarded
by Investigative Reporters & Editors, the largest organization of professional investigative
reporters and editors.

The four-part series, published last fall, was based on dozens of interviews and nearly 2,700
pages of previously undisclosed FBI documents. It prompted Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards
to apologize to the families of the victims on behalf of the state.

Edwards said he was six years old when the shooting happened and that all he knew about it
came from reading the stories by “a group at LSU who actually did the cold case investigation
and have been working on this to educate people.”

Read more at Bossier-Press Tribune