By Jack Richards
BATON ROUGE — The House Transportation Committee unanimously approved a bill to raise the fines and penalties on those adults who text and drive up to 286 percent for first offense. For minors, the fine increases up to 150 percent.
Read the story in The Town Talk
By Jack Richards
BATON ROUGE — The House Transportation Committee put Louisiana closer to take off with REAL ID compliance Monday, approving Senate Bill 227 by Sen. Yvonne Colomb, D-Baton Rouge, on an 11-1 vote, and moves to the full House floor for debate later this week.
“If you do not have REAL ID you will not be able to fly,” Colomb said.
By Samuel Carter Karlin
BATON ROUGE — A legislative proposal to create a transparency website for fiscal matters that would give the “average constituent” the tool to root out “inefficiencies” and “waste” in state government unanimously sailed through the House Appropriations Committee Monday.
By Justin DiCharia
BATON ROUGE – Following a move to transfer funding from the state’s TOPS college scholarship program to safety-net hospitals last Thursday, the LSU Medical School at Shreveport still will be $35.6 million in the red, the chancellor warned Sunday, forcing the school to make cuts to all the medical programs.
During a weekend Senate Finance Committee hearing, LSU Health Sciences Center Interim Chancellor G.E. Ghali testified the cuts to funding could potentially effect the school’s accreditation and residency programs.
By Samuel Carter Karlin
BATON ROUGE — As legislators deal with a $600 million shortfall for the fiscal year that starts July 1, many are looking toward a special session in June to raise revenue for state government services.
Some lawmakers are targeting tax breaks, and Gov. John Bel Edwards has indicated support for eliminating some of them.
But most exemptions, exclusions, rebates, credits and deductions wouldn’t save the state money for at least a year if the Legislature scrapped them.
By Jack Richards
By Samuel Carter Karlin and Jack Richards
BATON ROUGE — A marathon debate over HB1 and whether the state should fully fund TOPS or safety-net hospitals devolved into loaded and sometimes personal interrogations Friday before the House passed the omnibus budget, 82-17.
The debate spanned more than 13 hours between Thursday and Friday. The often contentious measure now goes to the Senate.
By Jourdan Moschitta
BATON ROUGE — From the time it was built in 1932, the halls of the Louisiana State Capitol have basked in the afterglow of a haunted history, and when the sun sets over the towering Statehouse, a different kind of haunting captivates the imaginations of the living.
By Justin DiCharia
BATON ROUGE — Four safety net hospitals in Bogalusa, Lake Charles, Alexandria and Houma and 30,000 college students are the losers in Gov. John Bel Edwards’ executive budget presented to the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday.
By Samuel Carter Karlin
BATON ROUGE — The non-partisan Revenue Estimating Conference decided to keep its revenue projections the same Thursday, leaving Louisiana with an underscored $600 million shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year.
The committee, however, expressed concern about employment numbers, which have been negative for the past few months.
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 