Agencies brace for budget cuts  

Louisiana state agencies would be forced to cut staff and reduce services next year if the Legislature follows through with budget cuts of up to 5% in the face of a budget shortfall. Agency heads told the House Appropriations Committee that the cuts could make it harder to prosecute child predators, administer elections and provide education and other programming for at-risk youth. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Meghan Friedmann explains how the already beleaguered Office of Juvenile Justice could be forced to to reduce the number of crucial specialists.

Such specialists work on the front lines with youth in detention facilities, said Jason Starnes, an undersecretary for the agency. A 5% budget cut would entail a reduction of 80 positions, he said. But doing so would increase overtime costs and therefore may not help the state in the long run, Starnes said. The department also could reduce or eliminate early intervention programs that aim to help youth before they find themselves in circumstances where they must enter state custody, he said.

Federal grant aims to improve literacy in Louisiana

Louisiana is slated to receive $70 million from the U.S. Department of Education to improve literacy rates. The grant, which is the largest given to any state, will help schools comply with a 2021 state law that requires new training for teaching reading. Compliance with the new requirements is lagging, with only 71% of teachers and 79% of administrators having taken the course as of May 1. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Elyse Carmosino reports: 

This is the third such round of grants to be handed out by the federal government under its Comprehensive Literacy State Development, or CLSD, Program. Louisiana was previously awarded $100 million in 2019 and $42 million in 2020. Jenna Chiasson, LDOE’s deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, said the state has been pinpointed each time for the strides it’s made in improving student literacy outcomes. 

Louisiana is one of only three states where reading test scores have fully rebounded from pre-pandemic levels, but much more work remains:

The national report found that, while Louisiana students’ reading scores had improved on average since 2020, stark racial and economic divides remained, with Black, Hispanic and low income students making less progress than their White and affluent peers. And according to a July report from the state Department of Education, nearly half of Louisiana’s second and third graders ended last school year reading below or significantly below grade level.

Summer food program is a success

Thirty-seven states, including Louisiana, opted to participate in a federal program that provides low-income children with food during the summer months. States Newsrooms’ Shauneen Miranda reports on the challenges and successes of Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks: 

Kelsey Boone, senior child nutrition policy analyst at the Food Research & Action Center, told States Newsroom that “like any new program, there are challenges with Summer EBT.” … Despite those challenges, Boone said the program is “definitely worth it” and “provides critical support to families by ensuring children have access to nutritious foods during the summer months, bridging the gap when school meals are unavailable.” Boone said “we are still in the midst of implementation, so there aren’t hard statistics on how the programs are really rolling out at this point.”

Parents and guardians in Louisiana can still receive grocery money through the Louisiana SUN Bucks program, but the deadline to apply is Sept. 20. Learn more and apply here. 

Which provisions of the Trump tax law expire in 2025?

The next 16 months will be a pivotal time for federal tax policy, as the next president and Congress will grapple with the looming expiration of the costly and ineffective 2017 tax cut law signed by former President Donald Trump. Brookings’ Comfort Oshagbemi and Louise Sheiner provide a breakdown of the expiring tax policies and their impact:

The TCJA provided the largest benefits to the richest taxpayers, and so the expiration of many of its provisions will disproportionately affect the rich. The table below reports estimates from the Tax Policy Center of the distributional effects of the expiration of the TCJA provisions.2 Households in the lowest income quintile will pay roughly one-half percent more of their  income in taxes if all the provisions of the TCJA expire, while households in the top 1% will pay an additional 3.1% of their income in taxes.

Number of the Day

67.5% – Percentage of faculty members at Louisiana universities who said they wouldn’t recommend working at schools in the state. Approximately half of faculty members are considering leaving Louisiana altogether, with salary, the state’s political climate and attacks on academic freedom as the driving factors. (Source: American Association of University Professors via the Louisiana Illuminator)