The 2024 Louisiana legislative session saw missed opportunities for new investments, backward momentum on policies that protect and support working people and some notable bright spots, according to a new report from Invest in Louisiana.
Legislators steered more money to police and prisons, cut support for early childhood education and once again refused to give public school teachers a raise. The Legislature also refused to establish a state minimum wage, while cutting the duration of unemployment benefits and eliminating the state’s ability to get waivers from federal work reporting requirements.
On the bright side, legislators resisted the urge to pass major tax cuts, and set aside new money to help colleges and universities deal with their lengthy backlog of deferred maintenance. Lawmakers also insisted that Louisiana accept available federal assistance to help 600,000 low-income children have more food to eat during the summer months.
Arguably most important, lawmakers refused to go along with Gov. Jeff Landry’s top legislative priority – a rushed, two-week convention to rewrite the state constitution.
Louisiana faces serious fiscal headwinds in 2025, as an expiring 0.45% state sales tax has helped create a $559 million budget shortfall that legislators will be charged with solving during next year’s “fiscal” session. Unfortunately lawmakers also created a new private school subsidy plan – “education scholarship accounts” – that has the potential to strain the state budget in future years once it’s fully implemented.