Bin unserious proposed NIL tax break bill

A bill contemplated by Republican state Rep. Dixon McMakin makes no fiscal sense and only subverts the purpose of higher education in Louisiana.

The bill in concept would exempt from state income tax earnings that college students receive from Name, Image, and Likeness deals in athletics. Individuals may negotiate these or another organization, such as a school, may do so on behalf of all its eligible students.

Dollar figures for these are generally not public, and they can be substantial. Publicized have been deals by Louisiana State University gymnast Livvy Dunne who, despite modest athletic credentials, has one of the most lucrative set of NIL deals due to her superior marketing skills, estimated in the neighborhood of at least $4 million annually. Regardless, given the state’s income tax rates, such an exemption may not even cost the state eight figures annually.

GOP Medicaid reform to benefit LA disabled

Rather than trepidation, the most health-vulnerable Louisianans should feel elation that the Republican Congress is talking about changing Medicaid reimbursement rules for states.

As part of federal government right-sizing discussions, the House of Representatives GOP majority has set as a goal a reduction of $880 billion over the next decades in costs that include Medicaid. Even factoring out non-Medicaid expenditures and well as waste reduction – and anybody who has worked through the Medicaid-financed system knows there is a formidable amount of it – the total dollar amount the federal government would have to spend on Medicaid would have to decrease to meet this goal.

In tandem, the majority has discussed making Medicaid subject to block grants. This would give states greater latitude over how funds designated for Medicaid could be spent in fulfilling its purposes, allowing them to better target highly-needy individuals rather than disproportionate spending on those less so or in no real need.

Bill could help discourage scofflaw landlords

Insofar as the upcoming 2025 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature and dealing with scofflaw apartment complex owners (and somewhat stealing from the “Mad Max” franchise), two bills enter, one bill leaves.

An issue that primarily has popped up in Shreveport involves apartment complex owners not paying water bills to the city and no real means to force them to do so. This leaves the city with the Hobson’s choice of tolerating it or cutting it off that then puts residents in a bind. Residents supposedly have an approximation of their water bills rolled into rent, as the complexes have a single line paid wholly which then splits off into individual units. But even though most occupants pay their rent, owners at several complexes haven’t remitted their due to the city for months.

The city has trouble collecting as ownership arrangements under law don’t present a responsible entity from which the city readily can collect. The complexes in question are older, lower-income residential in nature where the owners, because the properties aren’t worth much, bleed them as much as they can. Also some such properties the city has had declared derelict, with others otherwise habitable it has tolerated leaving water on a few hours a day so as not to make the situation of the residents paying in good faith untenable.

Just say no, in triplicate, to BC amendments

The best reason for Bossier Citians to vote down all three charter amendments on Mar. 29 is not so much what they do but what they don’t do.

Two of the three introduce relaxed term limit proposals, that only would permit three consecutive terms for city councilors and the mayor but leave open the chance that an elected official could return to a previous office after at least one term out. Products of a Charter Review Commission whose final membership was comprised of appointees of city councilors hostile to term limits and their appointees, in isolation these offerings are unobjectionable, but they don’t exist in isolation.

Because on May 3, another, more stringent, term limits amendment hits the ballot. This one is three terms lifetime and retroactive, product of a citizen-led petition process and the superior version if the goal is to prevent citizen-politicians from being captured by government.

Monroe school district unable to get it together

As if City of Monroe Schools didn’t have enough problems, apparent thievery at the top is being complemented it would seem from the bottom as well, all the while with the district saddled with minimal, even deteriorating, academic progress.

In the past year, the District has been rocked by allegations that former Superintendent Brent Vidrine on two occasions defrauded it. As part of his contract, he was allowed to buy more service time for retirement, but allegedly he forged documents to show he paid more than he did to receive the benefit. He has been indicted for this, but has paid back some, $20,000, and retired from the District last year even as he seemed to have shorted the district over $48,000 more. Still unresolved is annual extra but unauthorized payments according to his contracts totaling over $141,000 during his decade-long employment.

Possibly this activity was so under the radar that the Monroe City School Board couldn’t discover it during normal due diligence. In last year’s audit, the Board promised closer attention to superintendent reimbursement as a response. But how it has handled reports of spending concerning student activity accounts doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the current Board can get it right.

Wise to remove diversity from LA teacher grants

In the final analysis, Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s decision to end educational grants that give a role to intentional diversification of the teaching profession can provide Louisiana with the chance to improve its training of future teachers.

Expressions of concern, if not outright apoplexy, ensued when the Trump Administration notified it would end hundreds of millions of dollars of grants that had components designed to give preference to racial minorities in teacher training. In Louisiana, under the Teacher Quality Partnerships Program it would appear three grantees with about $13 million in remaining budget authority were affected, and under Supporting Effective Educator Development grants it would appear one grant with $3 million in budget authority remaining was affected. All explicitly set as a goal preference to serving minority applicants in order to create a more racially diverse teacher workforce.

Complaints came from those involved in the grants as well as special interests who benefited from them, decrying the move as damaging to teacher recruitment generally but in particular towards creating a more racially diverse educator workforce. Yet the facts show such hand-wringing as misplaced.

BC blowing fuse over unneeded car chargers

So, what part of “waste of money” do Republican Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler and the City Council not understand?

City taxpayers may be excused for thinking the city wasn’t going to pursue a project it actually first contemplated in 2018, and got the official award for in 2021 – two fast charging electric vehicle outlets. This comes from a court settlement where Volkswagen promised to pay up for surreptitiously selling vehicles able to dodge emissions standards. The consent decree allows states and Indian tribes and Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to solicit money from a trust fund for projects that reduce nitrogen oxides emitted from vehicles.

Each state came up with plans detailing eligible usages. A common usage in Louisiana’s has been conversion of older school buses from diesel to something else. In fact, among several local education agencies the Bossier Parish School District won just such an award in 2020 to replace 25 such 2009-or-older buses with new ones powered by propane with the grant picking up half the tab. This meant the BPSD could purchase newer replacements at less than market rate, a potential savings in the million-dollar range. The district did have to fund to install a propane filling unit at its bus barn and it’s unknown whether the fuel and maintenance costs of these buses are higher or lower than for the remainder of the diesel-run fleet.

Right-sizing LA govt means less local govt aid

Part of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s fiscal reform attempts to right-size Louisiana government must include assigning spending to its appropriate level of subsidiarity, a recent controversy reveals.

Last week, when Landry had introduced the fiscal year 2026 budget, concern arose over removal of a $7 million appropriation to distribute grants to domestic violence shelters. Befitting current revenue estimates, Landry wanted to produce a budget essentially at standstill, which meant forgoing almost all temporary items from last year.

This included that line item, tucked away in the FY 2025 supplemental appropriation bill and replicating from the previous year. Direct state appropriations happen only sporadically, with the last prior to FY 2024-25 being in 2018. Note that a dedicated funding source exists – self-generated revenues from one half of the fee charged for marriage licenses, and from civil fees charged to persons filing any suit or proceeding for divorce, annulment of marriage, or establishment or disavowal of the paternity of children – but this generates less than half a million bucks a year for general domestic violence mitigation.

BC has chance to cure herpetic outlay request

A Bossier City Council on the verge of its biggest shakeup in nearly a quarter-century may tell at its next meeting, after a promising sign at its previous gathering, whether it finally has renounced its free-spending, money-wasting ways.

This week, the Council will consider its annual five-year Capital Outlay Budget. While the plan may be altered at any time, it gives an idea of city priorities for infrastructure over the next half-decade.

As an example of how the city may pivot, earlier this month it considered plunking down front money, plus a small amount for contingencies, of $80,000 to install two electric vehicle charging stations on the top deck of the Louisiana Boardwalk parking garage it built two decades ago as a gift to developers. This stemmed from the federal government’s Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund program that would pay for purchase and installation of light duty direct current fast charging (“level 3” or about 20 to 60 minutes for a full charge) chargers according to a state plan, which in Louisiana means along various corridors located within a close distance of a high-speed roadway, or in Bossier City’s case Interstate 20. A survey of available power infrastructure led to this particular siting.

Landry must resist warping of standstill budget

As currently constituted, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s most pressing budget task will be to resist government-as-usual to continue right-sizing state government and to fund priorities that improve quality of life within Louisiana.

When introduced last week described as a “standstill” budget, spending rises less than one percent. However, that masks a lot of change, principally from two sources: the disappearance of pandemic-related grants and one-time spending attached to that but countered by continuation of escalating health care costs triggered by Medicaid expansion almost a decade ago. In all, while state means of finance fall two percent, a federal funds increase of around 3.5 percent more than offsets that to increase the total adjusted budget a few hundred million to $45 billion.

Lesser movement comes from shifting priorities. Not surprisingly, health care continues to vacuuming up more dollars, although there were a couple of novel situations. A decline in collections from motor vehicles and from state lands produced more demands on the general fund. On the spending side, juvenile justice and child welfare matters receive a boost, as does general public safety. And, contrary to claims made by advocates of committing to increasing food aid in the summer with federal dollars that this wouldn’t cost the state, the budget had to include extra state dollars to cover that.