The Louisiana Senate on Monday added $1.2 billion to next year’s state budget for one-time projects and initiatives before sending it back to the House as lawmakers speed toward adjournment. Senators plucked the dollars from the Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund, which consists of corporate and severance tax collections above $600 million. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Meghan Friedmann reports:
The Senate amendments set aside $709 million for the Louisiana Transportation Infrastructure Fund, which pays for improvements to roads, bridges, and similar work, and another $273 million for the Louisiana Economic Development Initiatives Fund, which funds efforts to attract new investments in the state. Another $75 million will go toward local water system improvements, while $43 million will fund higher education priorities, according to a release from the Senate.
The state operating budget includes level funding for Louisiana’s new private school voucher program, but omits an extra $50 million requested by Gov. Jeff Landry:
Anyone who received voucher funding last year will still receive funds, [Senate President Cameron] Henry said, adding that $43.5 million is about the same amount of money the state spent on its voucher program last year. LA GATOR will replace the voucher program, which covered private school tuition for low-income families.
The House can either agree with the Senate’s changes, or reject them and send the budget bills to a House-Senate conference committee where differences would need to be resolved before lawmakers adjourn on Thursday.
State inventory tax credit will expire
The Louisiana Senate rejected a House-backed plan on Monday to extend the state inventory tax credit. The extension would have cost taxpayers $200 million over three years. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges provides some background on the credit and the convoluted tax it supports:
Created in the early 1990s under then-Gov. Buddy Roemer, the inventory tax credit aimed to assist businesses that paid the inventory tax. The tax and tax credit work in a convoluted fashion. Under the current system, parishes levy a property tax every year on business inventory in the parish. Businesses pay the tax but then turn around and receive a tax credit for that payment from the state.
The Legislature repealed the inventory tax credit in November, but voters rejected a related constitutional amendment that would have, among other things, provided one-time payments to parishes that voluntarily eliminated their inventory tax. It appears voters will weigh in on the proposal again next year:
Through House Bill 365 and House Bill 366, the Legislature is set to give voters another chance to vote on the single issue of letting parishes eliminate the inventory tax. The bills, sponsored by Rep. Daryl Deshotel, R-Hessmer, are one step from winning legislative approval to be put on the statewide ballot in November 2026. If voters approve the constitutional amendment, the Landry administration believes that about 40 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes would repeal their inventory tax.
Landry immigration agenda advances
The state House advanced two bills on Monday that will be used to target undocumented immigrants in Louisiana. Verite News’ Bobbi-Jeanne Misick reports on the damaging effects of these proposals, including Senate Bill 100, which requires state agencies to verify the citizenship or immigration status of people accessing public benefits:
“Not all of these services require any kind of identification right now, [like] the low barrier homeless shelters or food banks or things like that, and there are people who are going to be unwilling to get benefits if it requires of citizenship verification,” Sissy Phleger, a safety net analyst for state think tank Invest in Louisiana, said in a phone interview last week. “It is going to burden people in Louisiana who don’t have enough to eat. I don’t have a place to live and that seems cruel and unnecessary.”
Phleger’s new issue brief explains how a package of immigration bills threaten Louisiana’s safety net.
High turnover at child welfare agency
Staffing levels at Louisiana’s child welfare agency were short by 129 workers in fiscal year 2024. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor. But as the Louisiana Illuminator’s Greg LaRose notes, the Department of Children and Family Services is making progress on retaining employees:
Turnover rates for state child welfare workers declined slightly, from nearly 16% in fiscal year 2023 to 15.3% in fiscal year 2024. In both years, an average of 214 child welfare employees left DCFS, while from July 1, 2024, through March 26, 2025, just 151 departed the agency. Louisiana, like many other states, has struggled to hire and retain qualified child welfare workers because of the nature and difficulty of the job and its low salary, according to the audit report.
Number of the Day
1,935 – Number of years it would take someone earning an $85,000 annual salary to make as much as the highest paid CEO in this year’s AP CEO compensation survey. (Source: Associated Press)