The Department of Children and Family Services hopes to extend the age of kids in the system to 21 years old during the upcoming legislative session. Emelie Gunn has more…
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LSU will offer the mumps vaccine to all students, faculty, and staff following the Department of Health’s confirmation of a dozen cases, most of them on the Baton Rouge campus. Halen Doughty has more…
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Louisiana’s film tax credit program won’t get a sequel next year under a proposal by Alexandria Senator Jay Luneau. Jeff Palermo has more on proposed legislation to eliminate movie tax incentives…
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Children who grow out of the foster care system at age 18, are not adequately prepared to enter the real world. That’s a major concern for the Department of Children and Family Services. Manager of the foster care program Toni Buxton says these teens are faced with responsibilities like finding a job and enrolling in health insurance without any support. She hopes to see changes to foster care during the legislative session…
DCFS is urging legislation to be filed that would increase and extend services up to the age of 21. Buxton says these children who are age out of the foster care system are more likely to face homelessness, drug addiction and incarceration. She says they don’t have the resources to turn to…
DCFS reports 23 other states have extended the age to 21. Buxton says given the state’s budget problems, they are scraping resources from their funds to assist these teens. She says it would have a significant financial impact on these kids who aren’t prepared to fully support themselves.
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Today and tomorrow, LSU will offer the mumps vaccine to all students, faculty, and staff, after the Louisiana Department of Health confirmed at least dozen cases of mumps, several of them on the Baton Rouge campus. Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Fred Lopez with LSU Health New Orleans says two doses of the MMR vaccine can significantly reduce the chances of a major outbreak.
Lopez for most people, the mumps consists of fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, and swelling of the salivary glands under the jaw. He says that typically lasts for 7 to 10 days and clears up. But he says there are some people who could see serious complications.
Students and faculty who have been or could be exposed to the virus, particularly those in campus housing, are encouraged to get a third dose of the MMR vaccine. Lopez recommends that everyone on a college campus get the vaccine to prevent spreading the virus.
The vaccines will be offered today and tomorrow from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. in the Student Union.
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Louisiana’s film tax credit program could be on its last reel, as Alexandria Senator Jay Luneau plans to file legislation that would cut the program. Luneau says in these tough budget times, lawmakers need to assess the return on investment of state funded programs. He says a recent study by LSU economist Loren Scott shows that return isn’t there when it comes to film tax credits.
Luneau says if that analysis is correct, the state has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the program. But Executive Director of Celtic Media Studios in Baton Rouge Patrick Mulhearn discredits Scott’s study.
A $180 million back-end cap was placed on the film tax credit program in 2015. But Mulhearn hopes legislators work to improve the program, instead of eliminating it, because the film industry is a huge job creator.
But Luneau doesn’t think removing this tax incentive would destroy Louisiana’s film industry. He says there were plenty of great movies made in Louisiana before the state ever offered film tax credits.
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The US Department of Education would face a $9 billion budget reduction under President Trump’s budget proposal and one of the state’s major teacher unions is not happy about it. Les Landon with the Louisiana Federation for Teachers says it would devastate public education. And he says dollars for private and religious schools would increase by $1.4 billion to help pay for vouchers.
Landon says under the proposed budget, Louisiana would lose more than $51 million in funds used to recruit, train, support, and pay teachers. He says that’s bad enough, but unfortunately it gets worse.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told the National Association of State Boards of Education that the President promised to invest in underserved communities and investing in school choice programs will do just that. But Landon says they have a big problem with spending public funds on private and religious schools for “school choice.”
DeVos says their goal is to provide an equal opportunity for quality education for all students.