The creation of a St. George school district could lead to significant job disruption for teachers currently working in the new breakaway city. The East Baton Rouge Parish Public School System estimates that 478 of its employees currently work in a school that would become part of the new district if voters approve a proposed change to the state constitution next month. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Charles Lussier reports:
Teachers with tenure … would likely lose that protected status if they are hired by St. George; school districts rarely grant tenure to teachers who transfer from another district. They also would lose the retiree health insurance benefits they have accrued unless they first retire from East Baton Rouge — some are not yet vested and can’t yet retire. If they stay with East Baton Rouge, they will need to land an open position somewhere else in the district, or, failing that, be reassigned to a new district job.
State IDs for released inmates
People leaving incarceration in Louisiana would have access to government-issued IDs upon their release, under House Bill 167 by Rep. Barbara Freiberg. The lack of an ID creates barriers to job and housing applications and other resources that help people re-start their lives. Dwight Hudson, Louisiana state director for Right on Crime and member of the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council, writing in a guest column for The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate, explains:
If the state expects someone to work, follow the law and support a family, the state should not send that person out the door without the documents needed to take those first lawful steps. A state ID is not a reward. It is not a handout. It is a basic tool for personal responsibility, and without it, the state is unintentionally undermining the very expectations it places on people who are trying to make a lawful transition back into society.
Louisiana is a bad place to be a working mom
Louisiana is the worst state in the nation for working moms, according to a new study from WalletHub. The analysis rated states across 17 key metrics, including child care quality, gender pay disparities and parental leave policies:
The U.S. still has a lot of work to do when it comes to improving conditions for working moms, given the wage gap and the lack of representation women have in certain leadership positions. However, some states are significantly better than others. The best states for working moms provide equitable pay for women and a strong potential for career advancement, along with robust parental leave policies and high-quality child care, health care, and schools. [said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo]
Higher-than-expected utility disconnections
Utility companies shut off customers’ power roughly 13 million times in 2024, according to a new federal report. The analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration was the result of a 2023 federal law that required Congress – for the first time – to collect data on utility disconnections. The Washington Post’s Julie Z. Weil reports:
“The numbers are far worse than we had estimated, given the rate of shutoffs we had known from our previous data,” said Jean Su, a researcher at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group that lobbied Congress to ask companies for the information. … The new data comes just after the Trump administration proposed, for a sixth time, eliminating the $4 billion LIHEAP program that helps low-income Americans pay for electricity and natural gas, arguing that consumer protections already exist to prevent people from being cut off from the fuel they need to heat and cool their homes.
Disconnections were more frequent in the South:
“The rate of shutoffs in those states are particularly egregious, much worse than the rest of the country,” Su said. Experts said the region suffers from a combination of risk factors: high poverty rates and low incomes; significant recent hikes in energy prices; long, hot summers that call for heavy use of air conditioning; and few consumer protections that block companies from shutting off residents’ power.
Louisiana had 1.8 shutoffs for every 10 customers, the fifth-highest rate in the nation. It’s important to note that some customers could have been disconnected more than once, meaning fewer than 18% of households lost power.
Number of the Day
$119.62 – “Real” value of $100 in Monroe in 2024. Monroe had the lowest relative prices of all U.S. metro areas. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis via The Advocate)