Governor Edwards proposed 183 million dollars worth of cuts to the TOPS scholarship program. Emelie Gunn has more on what this means…
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For the fourth consecutive year, Louisiana has broken records in tourism, according to Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser. Halen Doughty has more…
Cut 2 (31) “I’m Halen Doughty”
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The LHSAA’s executive committee meets today as the state legislature looks at legislation aimed at ending the split playoffs in football and other sports. Jeff Palermo has the story…
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Another bill will be heard at the state capitol today that aims to prevent the removal of confederate monuments. A Senate committee already rejected one attempt to create a state board that would decide if a city can take down a confederate statue and a House committee hears similar legislation today. Former state senator Elbert Guillory, who is an African American, has been a vocal supporter of efforts to keep Confederate monuments standing….
The bill scheduled today in the House Municipal Affairs committee would establish a Memorial Preservation Board that would be in charge of granting a waiver to relocate any monuments that’s been in place for more than 30 years. Guillory says these monuments need to be preserved to teach future generations about the history of Louisiana.
Guillory says unfortunately the real issue here is not the monuments.
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House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry believes lawmakers can fund the TOPS scholarship program without raising additional taxes. Governor John Bel Edwards proposed budget for next fiscal year calls for a 183 million dollars cut to the state-funded scholarship program, because of a large revenue shortfall. But Henry says the state has enough money to fund TOPS…
Governor Edwards says additional revenues are needed to fund all of the priorities in the budget and plans to call another special session as early as June 7th. But Henry says there is no need for another session until at least September. He says the governor is painting the worst picture possible in an effort to increase more taxes…
Higher Education Commissioner Joseph Rallo says currently, we’re facing a 62-percent cut to TOPS. Under current rules, if no more money is allocated to TOPS then only students with an ACT of 27 or higher would be eligible for TOPS. He hopes this will not deter college students from going to school.
Not only are colleges dealing with a potential cut to TOPS but they are also facing a 46 million dollar cut in state funding. Rallo says there is a lot of uncertainty right now when it comes to higher education.
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Four of the ten hospitals for the poor and uninsured in Louisiana are at risk of closing because of critical cuts to the state Department of Health and Hospitals. DHH Secretary Rebekah Gee says her department took over half of the 750-million dollars in budget cuts, which means some people may lose access to healthcare.
Six public-private hospitals in Louisiana will remain open, but the other four might not. Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne says the state needs to come up with 75-million dollars to keep the other four safety net hospitals open. Gee says her department is doing everything they can to cut back on spending, including laying people off. She says DHH has gone from 12-thousand employees in Louisiana to 55-hundred.
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DHH received 409-million dollar cut in state general funds. Gee says legislators cannot just move money around to resolve such a massive budget deficit. She says it will take another special session and raising more revenue to close the budget gap.
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Louisiana has broken the tourism record for the fourth year in a row, according to Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser. In 2015, Louisiana welcomed almost 29 million visitors, who spent over $11 billion. That’s almost a 3-percent increase from the previous year. Nungesser says the state needs tourism dollars to help resolve the budget problems.
Nungesser says the money generated through tourism means more tax dollars that don’t come out of Louisianans pockets.
Nungesser says if we can continue to see this increase, there will be great days ahead for the people of Louisiana. He says we needs to do whatever we can to keep those numbers going up.
Nungesser says the credit goes to the people at the department of tourism, who do a great job in bringing people to the state.
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The LHSAA Executive Committee holds its spring meeting today, and they’ll continue to discuss the expanded public-private school playoff split that’s been in place for football and will impact other sports next school year. Todd Guice, LHSAA past president, says he still hopes that something can be done to end the split.
A bill that seeks to end the public-private split is waiting to be heard on the House floor. The author of that legislation, River Ridge Representative Kirk Talbot, will be at today’s meeting. In January, high school principals voted to expand the playoff split to basketball, baseball and softball. Guice says the executive committee could call for a special meeting to have the principals’ vote again on the issue…
There’s been talk of creating another organization where public and private schools could both compete. Guice says he doesn’t think that would really help anything and hopes a solution can be found within the LHSAA.