With just a few days left in the current special legislative session, it may be too early to give a real assessment of how things turned out, but there are some observations worth making. The first is that going into the eighth straight year of cuts to the state budget finding additional cuts on anywhere […]
It may be one of the most reform-minded bills of the session and one which most people know nothing about. It’s HB 86 by Rep. Walt Leger and its goal is to change behaviors when it comes to state spending in a way that is systemic and forward looking. To understand its intent you have […]
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a supplemental spending bill that contains a new set of budget cuts to education that are at best, irresponsible. These actions by the House should be particularly disturbing to those who care anything about education in our state. It came in the debate over HB 122, a bill […]
The general public might not pay a lot of attention to legislative sessions, but if you even make it sound like someone is going to mess with their TOPS scholarships or their football, that perks them up. Of course, despite the headlines about TOPS being cut or the football season somehow being threatened, those things […]
It didn’t take long after lawmakers left the state Capitol in June to figure out that declining oil prices and lower-than-expected revenue predictions were creating major problems for the budget they had just passed. So back in November they approved yet another round of mid-year cuts with the “nod, nod, wink, wink” expectation that would […]
For the last several months, a special committee appointed by BESE has been reviewing Louisiana’s academic standards. You remember them. Those standards that were supposed to be so controversial and the ones that we’ve been using successfully in our schools for the last two to three years. The review panel was made up of sub-committees […]
While there’s no doubt that money and the budget were the two top issues in last year’s governor’s race, it’s also pretty clear that right up there with them was the plight of higher education. As it turns out, over the last week there has been a lot written about postsecondary education, and for those […]
By now you’ve probably seen the list of options Governor John Bel Edwards has put forward to deal with the state’s ongoing budget issues. By any measure there’s not much to like in the solutions being offered to address an immediate $750 million budget shortfall that must be taken care of by June 30 or […]
For the last two-and-a-half decades, CABL’s Leadership Louisiana program has worked to help current and emerging leaders from across Louisiana realize their potential to make a difference in their communities and for the state. Today the program boasts more than 1,000 alumni, many of whom have truly made lasting impacts for the betterment of Louisiana. […]
New governors have inherited big budget messes before, but you have to go back awhile to remember one as daunting as the one currently facing John Bel Edwards and the new Legislature. Just to cut to the chase, the word coming out now is that the shortfall in the current fiscal year’s budget, which ends […]
