House Appropriations Chairman Jerome Zeringue says the odds of crafting a balanced budget for the next fiscal year that includes a billion dollar deficit thanks to COVID-19 and the oil price crash without a special session are about 50-50. Zeringue says crafting that budget is difficult because right now we don’t know how much federal aid the state will get, or how we can use it. Without federal aid higher ed and health care could face steep cuts…
Louisiana received 1.8 billion in COVID-19 response funding from the feds with the requirement that it only be spent on direct response to the pandemic.
Louisiana reports 612 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the largest single day jump since May 1st, but state officials are cautioning that the bulk in new reporting is largely due to a testing logjam. One confirmed positive trend is that the state has now dropped below 1,200 COVID hospitalizations for the first time since March.
The Louisiana Association of United Ways is asking residents to complete their ten-minute online survey to find out how COVID0-19 is impacting families financially. Jeff Palermo has the story
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Senator Bill Cassidy says the feds need to dedicate more resources to figuring out how we can get kids back in school. He says younger students are losing critical time in the classroom, and parents are struggling with them at home…