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.”
By Sarah Gamard
Representatives from the global casino enterprise Caesar’s Entertainment outlined for the Riverboat Economic Development and Gaming Task Force the negative impact of a local smoking ban on its No. 1 Louisiana enterprise, Harrah’s Casino & Hotel in downtown New Orleans.
The casino is one of the three in Louisiana owned by Caesar’s. The other two are in Bossier City.
By Sarah Gamard
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana law requires gaming riverboats to have a working paddlewheel, even though the boats do not traverse the waterways. The chairman of the legislatively created task force in charge of recommending rules for the state’s gaming industry called that requirement “ridiculous.”
By Tryfon Boukouvidis
BATON ROUGE — Spouses of certain Louisiana law enforcement officers would receive better pension survivor benefits under a bill filed for the legislative session that starts April 10. It is sponsored by Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City, who also filed a bill to expand the reach of the Teachers’ Retirement System.
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 