Elites panic at LA Health's holistic messaging

More interesting than the news that the Louisiana Department of Health has taken a more holistic view of public health is the motivation behind those, including the media, who bemoan it.

Last week, National Public Radio ran a breathless piece about how LDH had deemphasized indiscriminate pushing of vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus and influenza and maybe the flu-like mpox, although its incidence in the U.S. in its weak form is rare and in its more virulent form nonexistent. Allegedly, LDH officials instructed employees not to make vigorous efforts to advise the public to get these vaccines and noted the department “is shifting away from one-size-fits-all paternalistic guidance to a more informative approach aimed at enabling individuals, in consultation with their doctor, to make better decisions for themselves.”

That is an entirely appropriate and productive approach to these illnesses, all of which share the same characteristics, to varying degrees, that people with healthy immune systems and/or co-morbidities rarely become seriously ill from these. Mpox potentially is the most serious but can be taken care of with smallpox vaccination, although the less prevalent vaccine version in the U.S. dedicated to it does present a relatively high 1 in 175 rate of developing myocarditis/pericarditis among other less severe side effects, while the more prevalent vaccine hasn’t been studied enough to come up with a hard number although it is thought to be less deleterious.

New Landry panel should cite grifting well deal

There’s a layup waiting for Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s new Fiscal Responsibility Program which it should take: cancelling the behind-closed-doors grifting by political insiders that has contributed to the state’s inability to reduce the numbers of orphaned oil wells.

This week, Landry created this new board designed to find savings in state government through reviewing spending choices, seeking efficiencies in expenditures, and vetting contracts. One of the very first things it needs to look into is the Louisiana Oilfield Restoration Authority’s sweetheart, if not illegally-administered, deal with the state.

Created during the Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration, LORA formed in response to a law that attempted to mitigate the incidence of orphan oil wells. These once-productive wells were abandoned by owners when faced with cleanup costs, leaving the state to have to deal with them. This method of contracting out rather than the state handling it (through its own resources or federal grants) sought to build a fund from well production into which owners paid that could be used to address abandoned wells, operating like a form of insurance and less expensively to encourage closure rather than abandonment.

Deficit gone, but only first right-sizing step

The good news is Louisiana appears to have enough revenues to cover continuation costs in state government for the next fiscal year, 2025-26. The bad news is the costs remain too high and a net tax increase had to cover these.

That was the unstated conclusion accepted by the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference at its typically-held December meeting. Its last May meeting had the body adopt a general fund revenue estimate of $11.7 billion, a drop from the predicted just under $12.1 billion for this fiscal year attributed to the expiration of a 2016/18 added 0.45 percent sales tax.

As it turned out, the FY 2025 figure ended up just a bit higher. Yet the FY 2026 forecast came in nearly $450 million higher, thanks to the special session of the Legislature last month where both tax law changes that cut income taxes and eliminated the franchise tax while retaining the 0.45 percent extra sales tax and adding 0.55 percent more (dropping 0.25 percent in a few years) as well as redirecting vehicle taxes, estimated at $280 million annually, that year and the year after away from capital outlay and into the general fund.

Natural gas retailer sale won't harm Louisianans

Expect political leftist climate alarmists and class warriors to try to make a last stand this week at the New Orleans City Council meeting to stop the final step in Delta Utilities’ acquisition of gas distribution throughout Louisiana.

During 2024, the entity, a subsidiary of the private investment firm Berhard Capital Partners, has successfully navigated the regulatory hoops to buy up all of CenterPoint Energy’s and Entergy Louisiana’s natural gas business plus the distribution network throughout the state (as well as Energy gas business in Mississippi, also part of the deal). Only Energy New Orleans remains without such approval, which the Council seems poised to give at its Thursday meeting, adding to the Public Service Commission’s nod from earlier this fall.

Over a billion bucks will go towards the effort expected to be wrapped up the middle of next year. If comments planned for submission to the Council from a variety of business and social organizations spanning the gamut indicate anything, approval will be popular.

But not for a select group of leftists who see the deal as a method of inducing more natural gas consumption at potentially higher prices. The separate deals approved pretty much follow the same script: no changes to existing operation and no price hikes for 15 months, although the New Orleans part also promises (and has been set in motion already) locating Delta’s headquarters in the city, boosting commercial prospects and adding a couple of hundred jobs.

However, the leftists complain there’s no guarantee price increases won’t come in 2026 as they allege rising prices are inevitable because Delta isn’t public which makes it easier for it to raise fees and purportedly the boom in LNG exporting is causing a supply pinch that raises domestic prices. They picked up a big backer in the dying embers of Democrat Joe Biden’s Department of Energy that this week issued a report claiming this.

But that’s merely advocacy literature backing the ideological imperative of climate alarmism following its imperative of faith that burning more of a fossil fuel like natural gas will fuel catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Higher quality research exposes the weakness of the belief that prices will escalate, revealing instead that as LNG output has expanded and exports begun this has not affected pricing, because the increased demand was met with increased supply and U.S. household prices continue to be among the world’s lowest. The bankruptcy of the CAGW argument has led regulators to dismiss this opposition.

Nor does the transparency argument hold any water. The PSC will continue to regulate gas provision statewide except for New Orleans, where the Council will regardless of whether Delta is private. It still will have to submit almost-entirely public documentation for any rate increase, and if voters don’t think either body holds Delta accountable enough on rates or other activities, they can hold regulators accountable by replacing them at the ballot box.

There’s no good reason the deal shouldn’t go through, and possibly provisional costs will decrease with integration statewide and economies of scale. The Council doing what is expected of it along and long with other regulators performing its due diligence should make consumers under the deal better off in the long run.

Back to basics paying off for younger LA students

The hits just keep coming for Louisiana’s school children, validating state and local policy choices and shifts made over the past four years.

In 2021, the Legislature required development and implementation of an early literacy program to boost reading skills among students in kindergarten and early grades, which was to be based on what colloquially might be called a “back to basics” approach and included literacy proficiency in teaching in preparation programs. It has rolled out now up to third grade and indicates not only does the overall score of a grade continue to rise but also students in the aggregate experience a cumulative increase over the years. That could be good news to a lot of schools, as the law mandates use of these data in compiling applicable school performance scores, which will begin next academic year.

Another law passed in 2023 took effect this year and relies on this data. It prohibits promotion of third-graders if they don’t achieve proficiently enough in reading, an approach taken by about half the states. This generates some controversy because some studies purport to show retention for any reason is associated with greater propensity to drop out in high school, especially for racial minority students. However, research also points out that earlier intervention and especially when combined with individualized intervention, which the Department of Education has started to introduce in Louisiana, mitigates this impact. Keep in mind as well that as studies show retention increases the odds of eventual promotion into high school this demonstrates an associational, not causal, relationship, where the same reason(s) for underachieving early in a school career also explain dropping out, not that retention causes a greater propensity to drop out once aging out of the mandatory schooling age.

Bond panel acts legally to aid illegal BC action

The irony is that by the State Bond Commission reluctantly following the law it rewarded a majority of members of the Bossier City Council for breaking it and their oaths of office.

Last week, the SBC met in its regular meeting to review, among other things, the dozens of local government requests to put items on the Mar. 29 election ballot. Included was Bossier City’s controversial requests regarding the end products of its Charter Review Commission.

A subcommittee in October denied fast-tracking the request to make it onto the Dec. 7 ballot. At the time, the subcommittee, headed by Republican Treas. John Fleming, decided that would be premature to eschew the normal schedule as the items were related to matters under litigation. To be precise, one of the three items would impose a consecutive three-term limit on the mayor and city council offices, while a citizen-led initiative would impose that but make it lifetime and retroactive.

Monroe voters hand Ellis win, rebuff Council

Score that Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis 2, Monroe City Council Democrat majority 0, on the issue of extending a city sales tax for capital improvements as a battle over city spending priorities continues.

Earlier this month, the Monroe electorate passed a renewal of the city’s one percent sales tax, first levied in 1994 just for streets but expanded in 2001 for infrastructure of all kinds. During Ellis’ first term in office it was used to raise and spend $120 million on various projects from its generation of $18.8 million annually to back that. The city’s latest five-year capital improvement plan lists $289 million of projects in that time frame, of which the sales tax proceeds would help to fund by backing debt for that.

It was a reauthorization that Council Democrats Juanita Woods, Rodney McFarland, and Verbon Muhammad tried twice to delay. On May 28 the Council, after McFarland and Muhammad had won elections to their seats but before taking them, approved sending the measure to the Dec. 7 ballot – about five years ahead of schedule, with Woods voting against. It was to last 25 years although originally it had been set not to expire at all.

LA must encourage generational opportunity

Louisiana policy-makers, from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to the Legislature to the Public Service Commission, can’t blow the huge generational economic opportunity that, whether entirely intended, has come the state’s way.

In the past three months, two separate data center campuses have hit the drawing board in the state. The projects by Meta and Hut 8 (which may team up with Meta) if completed (scheduled within the next year or two) will change and in quantum fashion the state’s high technology sector. It’s part of a sweeping trend in the industry that plays exactly to the state’s strengths.

As cloud computing and artificial intelligence gain wider penetration into the global economy, areas that have three assets will win economic development based on these that in each instance attracts billions of dollars in investments and creates hundreds, even thousands, of well above-average paying jobs: lots of relatively inexpensive land, loads of relatively inexpensive energy sources, and a workforce enabled to service it all. And in these, Louisiana has hit the jackpot.

Edwards exit, Landry agenda spur development

Just under a year into the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry Administration it’s instructive to see how from night to day went the state’s economic development prospects.

Recently, Louisiana Department of Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois related the process of how Meta will bring billions of dollars of investment to the state in Richland Parish. The technology company snapped up a state-owned site for a data center that will create hundreds of well-paying jobs that will necessitate Entergy Louisiana to build three gas-powered generation sites, two nearby, just to provide enough energy for the complex.

She said not long after Landry’s election Meta came calling, and a years-long process ended up only taking months to complete. Hastening the process was Act 730 passed this year, which exempts data centers creating a minimum of fifty new direct, permanent jobs in Louisiana and involving at least $200 million in new capital investment in the state between Jul. 2024 and Jul. 2029 from paying any state or local sales tax on data-related equipment for 20 to 30 years.

Fleming to pose tough challenge to Cassidy

There’s nothing like getting an early start it seems for Republican Treas. John Fleming, who two years out from the 2026 Senate election has declared his intention to take on vulnerable GOP incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy.

He may not be the last quality candidate to enter the fray from his party. In the past, Cassidy might have expected only token opposition from anywhere on the political spectrum. Finishing two terms off a convincing 2020 win, he has banked through the third quarter of 2024 $5.8 million.

However, immediately after reelection he began making controversial votes, principally in favor of convicting after impeachment Republican former Pres. Donald Trump and for an enormous spending bill Democrats favored that ballooned the deficit further and ignited inflation that had little relatively in worthwhile or sensible objectives. If he took this course because he wanted to obviate a challenge from prominent conservatives by throwing bones to moderate and even liberal voters because of the blanket primary system in place where all candidates regardless of party run together in the general election, it backfired.

Race cannot dominate Monroe fire chief pick

Democrats on the Monroe City Council have embarked upon an unwise and disappointing course that puts ideology over good administrative practice.

At the last Council meeting, the trio rejected independent Mayor Friday Ellis’ nomination of 24-year veteran Daniel Overturf to become the next fire chief of the city. He would have replaced longtime chief Terry Williams. The two Republican councilors supported the decision.

The vote perturbed the union that represents the Monroe Fire Department’s and apparently much of the rank-and-file, a number of whom appeared in his support at the meeting. An anonymous survey sent out revealed 85 percent of respondents approved of Overturf’s nomination, and numerous professionals recommended him. He was one of 17 to take and pass the hiring exam, which was conducted through the state, for the position, ranking tenth on education and experience.

Black voter antipathy to Broome denies last term

And now Louisiana can say its second through eighth largest cities have Republican chief executives (and the ninth-largest has a non-Democrat; fifth largest will be St. George whose first elected mayor inevitably should come from the GOP), now that East Baton Rouge Parish has elected Republican Sid Edwards to boot out of office current Democrat Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome – thanks to black voters.

Broome had a fight on her hands for a third term when she trailed Edwards by five percentage points in the general election, not even cracking 30 percent of the multi-candidate field. Incumbents showing that poorly are in trouble, and this weekend Edwards, a high school football coach of renown and school administrator but rookie politician, closed the deal with voters.

He did it because of turnout. The 331 precincts can be parsed by race of registrants to determine this, assigning these to “favorable” or “unfavorable” precincts for each candidate, where from Broome a favorable precinct was one with greater than 80 percent black registrants – overwhelmingly Democrats – and an unfavorable one was where more than 80 percent of registrants were white – a plurality if not a majority of Republican typically. For Edwards, the definitions for each would swap.

Bossier Parish Jury: black hole of transparency

Like a successful burglar in the night, the Bossier Parish Police Jury passed a budget that nobody can decipher outside of the courthouse much less knew about, perhaps because nobody outside of parish government really could tell what was in it.

This should come as no surprise, as the Jury has a history as the most opaque of major northwest Louisiana governments, if not of any nine-figure local government in the state. Unlike other are larger local governments, in its agendas, other than some maps to go along with zoning decisions (which is the bulk of its decision-making), its various ordinances and resolutions contain no documentation or attachments, just their titles and extremely brief descriptions. Compelled by state law to transmit its meetings and those of its committees, for the former it chooses a low-quality Facebook Live format which at least creates an archival copy, as for the latter it uses Zoom that keeps no copy for future viewing.

Its staff can’t even get right the new state law that compels such governments to send out agendas to its meetings and any of its committee meetings to any requestor. I made such a request originally to the parish’s public information officer Rod White, which got shuttled to the assistant parish secretary Ashley Ezell who then wrote after the Nov. 20 meeting saying the agenda bounced to the e-mail address to which she had sent that note (no mention about the committees). It baffles me why it would bounce when she subsequently sent successfully a message to that account, but I wrote her back saying the address was good, for obvious reasons.

Caddo must reject budget-busting wage hike

Recently headed in the right direction, the Caddo Parish Commission can’t veer back into stupidity, as it threatens to do by compounding a mistake it has made previously.

This week, the Commission will decide whether to extend a $15 an hour minimum wage policy to significant contracts and contractors. Earlier this year it committed the folly of doing that to its employees. The silly argument made at the time for that was it made for a “living” wage that would diminish poverty and therefore crime.

Of course, research demonstrates that setting artificial wage floors that overpay for the contribution a particular activity makes for society ends up to the detriment of society. Visibly, it eliminates jobs either by having to spread out more work to fewer people in order to make it economically viable and has a similar ripple effect upwards in pay grades, and/or in background this increases automation as that becomes relatively cheaper eventually to the point of the most cost effective strategy.

GOP has real shot at winning EBR mayor-president

If early voting is any indication, the GOP has a real shot at grabbing the chief executive’s job in the parish with the state’s most voters

East Baton Rouge Parish is where most of the runoff election action is for Louisiana thus fall. It’s got a slate of city-parish elections (now whittled to a couple of Metropolitan Council spots) topped by the mayor-president’s showdown between Democrat incumbent Sharon Weston Broome and challenger Republican high school football coach and administrator Sid Edwards.

It’s a pairing that surprised a number of media analysts that should not have, given that about a third of parish voters are Republicans and Broome had to split Democrats with eventual third-place finisher former state Rep. Ted James, as well as Broome’s unimpressive tenure heading the city that ranks low in quality of life and stagnant from 2010 to 2020 in population and estimated to lose numbers since. More recently, Broome fought then botched the transition of parish unincorporated areas into St. George that could cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.

LA must do more to ban DEI, promote civics

It’s time for Louisiana not only to ban legally race-conscious practices in programming and personnel actions in the state’s higher education institutions, but to go beyond that to aid in understanding why.

Recently, the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors voted to end practices such as requiring diversity statements for hiring and review programs for whether these privilege race-conscious activities and to institute a policy of neutrality in institutional communications on issues of the day. Some, like LSU’s Baton Rouge campus, have taken this a step further voluntarily by at least renaming, and presumably repurposing, academic offices and positions fundamentally tied to the diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts.

But it’s not enough. The three other systems since then have not done the same. Two will have their supervisors meet int December and the Southern University System’s supervisors met this past weekend; it didn’t address the topic and the other two don’t indicate that they will.

Bad & good of unprofessional professor incident

Just what Louisiana higher education needs, another black eye that invites only more disdain and scorn when it needs to reassure the public it’s there to teach critical thinking and all various theories and information to achieve that, not as a platform for proselytizing.

It turns out the reelection of Republican former Pres. Donald Trump proved somewhat unnerving to one special snowflake in Louisiana State University’s School of Law. Assoc. Prof. Nicholas Bryner shortly afterwards loosed a diatribe to one of his classes in which he asserted (1) if you voted for Trump, you have to prove you’re a good person because apparently that behavior makes you otherwise suspiciously evil and (2) a vote for Trump is a “rejection of the idea that we are governed by a people with expertise.” Not only are these statements easily falsifiable, but they also drew the ire of GOP Gov. Jeff Landry, who fired off a note to LSU’s president, law school dean, the LSU Board of Supervisors, and Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill suggesting some kind of legal violation may have occurred requiring some sort of punishment.

There is quite a bit of self-deception and/or lack of awareness by Bryner in his screed that careens to the hypocritical. He claimed “my job is not to teach you about politics” while clearly making politicized statements. Even more laughably, his comments included a summation of an administrative imperative for government to make “rational” decisions “ideally based on evidence” – risible because in at least one public forum he opined in a way that explicitly rejected that in the most ironic way.

Thanksgiving Day, 2024

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Sunday through Thursday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Thursday, Nov. 28 being Thanksgiving Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Plaudits due not just to Landry for reform win

Certainly Republican Gov. Jeff Landry gets to take a lot of credit for changes poised to alter significantly Louisiana’s fiscal structure. But he crossed the goal line after others had helped him down the field, some of whom no longer serve in government.

It took quite a bit of political capital investment for something of this magnitude, the biggest change in half a century, to be pulled off, and not all political leaders have the skill to do it. That may have been where over a decade ago GOP former Gov. Bobby Jindal came up short. As originally constituted, Landry’s plan looked at its core like Jindal’s – swapping income taxation for broader sales taxation and increasing the overall load on business – and became even closer when hiking the sales tax rate after broadening the sales tax shriveled substantially as did curtailing income tax breaks.

Jindal, however, threw in the towel rather quickly in the face of opposition, while Landry rolled with the punches and kept on the pressure. He had to reduce benefits enjoyed by individuals to appease corporate interests, although these were done in a way that benefits trickled down to individuals also with the exception of a few things like keeping the wasteful Motion Picture Production tax credit that benefits enormously only a few. What Landry ended with (technically still be to be signed into law by him and dependent upon passage of an omnibus constitutional amendment next spring) wasn’t nearly as promising as what he started with, but it is a considerable improvement over what currently is.

LPSC can't let climate alarmists botch project

Finally, Louisiana’s status as a low-cost destination for huge power users has begun to pay off. Now its up to wise heads to make sure deluded climate alarmists don’t spoil things.

At the last Public Service Commission meeting, as part of a filing it was announced that Meta would build a data site at the state’s Franklin Farm location just off of Interstate 20 on State Highway 183 in Holly Ridge, Richland Parish. The 1,400 acre tract has been owned by the state since 2006 and until recently was considered a white elephant as the state had hoped to have a large manufacturer with thousands of jobs take up the spot. However, that never caught on since the site was undeveloped without utilities infrastructure.

Instead, it hit the jackpot with Meta, who said it will employ only 300 to 500 but with an average salary of $82,000 and will plow in as much as $5 billion to develop essentially a server farm. Information technology companies generally have been on a buying spree for servers as the backbone for artificial intelligence application, which take an enormous amount of computing power.

BC councilors choose deficit over prudence

Electoral politics in all of its glory gave Bossier City a 2025 budget in deficit, complete with an upside-down spirited if fantasy-based defense right out of George Orwell’s 1984 and a bowdlerized version of the ridiculed old saw that begs, “Trust us, we’re the government.”

The City Council unanimously passed a budget about $8.5 million unbalanced, knowingly and willingly engaging in deficit spending for city operations through the general fund. That was shaved to under $6 million by the transferring in from a few other funds along with the usual (over the past few years) transfer out of $4 million to pay in part debt. The bulk of the transfer in also is typical, $6.8 million from the “1991 Sales Tax,” a shorthand for transfer from funds collecting for the 1991 half-cent levy that can go to towards fire, jail, and municipal buildings operations, along with other things not eligible for general fund backing.

This is unprecedented. Councilors Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby have served since 1997, Republican David Montgomery since 2001, and Republican Jeff Free since 2013. Since 2013, the city never intentionally passed a budget with a deficit, much less one with expenditures about 110 percent of revenues, transfers included. In fact, from 1997 through 2017, the city consistently in budgeting for surpluses missed every single year with deficit spending that had to be balanced by tapping other funds. 2018 saw for the first time actual revenues (and expenditures) exceed those budgeted, but then the next three budgets missed with actual numbers below those budgeted, but unlike the previous two decades excepting 2018 their actual revenues exceeded expenses. Only in 2022 and 2023, skewed by Wuhan coronavirus pandemic fiscal dynamics that have since passed did the budget underestimate expenses and overestimate revenues, rapidly building up general fund reserves.

LA fiscal reform needs to keep striding forth

Well, it’s not a giant leap for Louisiana fiscal sanity, but it is one small step -- maybe even a stride -- which puts it ahead of anything since the 1974 Constitution came into being. Meaning we won’t see any giant leaps any time soon.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry won a partial victory in rejiggering the state’s taxing and spending regimes more towards something comprehensible when the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature adjourned, a confabulation he called. Landry campaigned on making a more economic growth-friendly structure and he delivered as best he could with the cooperation of almost all Republicans and a few Democrats here and there – needed since almost all matters required supermajorities to approve, and some awaits voter approval Mar. 29.

On the plus side, a flat individual income tax of 3 percent with standard deductions almost tripled (and more in some cases) ensured far more filers would pay no income tax at all and almost none would not see some kind of tax cut. The corporate franchise tax disappeared and some corporate filers saw a rate cut as well with a new flat corporation income tax rate of 5.5 percent and a higher deduction that makes it likely few corporate filers will pay more. Those that may might find themselves in that undesirable situation because the inventory tax break was reduced, although a mechanism to eliminate that was set in place with uncertain prospects about how well it might work. And voters will consider constitutional changes that increase spending flexibility that could redirect collected revenues to higher-priority purposes and make some provisions in the Constitution turn into statute that will make them more malleable for revenue collection and spending choices.

Landry plan roars in, now facing strangulation

While Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s fiscal reform agenda may have come in roaring like a lion, as the Louisiana Legislature’s special session to vet it comes around the backstretch it may not be going out with whimper, but more like emitting the sounds of strangulation.

Special interests – not a new story when it comes to the history of dealing with the state’s convoluted fiscal structure that instills higher income and sales tax rates than necessary then tries to offset these with far too many carveouts exempting discrete industries who win lobbying battles – have done their best to pervert Landry’s plan of broadening tax bases in exchange for extending sales taxes to activities commonly subject to it in other states and eliminating income tax breaks. Enough Republican legislators have responded to these blandishments to deny the narrow two-thirds majorities each chamber would need to pass changes that reduce tax breaks or increase rates, while almost all Democrats have opposed them from the start since the reforms increase overall sales tax collection at the expense of income tax collections, and as income tax receipts grow faster than sales tax receipts the change would put a natural brake on the growth of government that arouses Democrats.

Snapping at the heels of legislators caused deletion of many activities that would have become taxable at sale, even as that bill continues hung up in the House. The Senate also ratcheted back severely some income tax exceptions that also detracted from revenue. In essence, that caused three major changes to the plan to make up for this, one of these indifferent in impact but the others not so good.

Career-threatening problems mount for Arceneaux

Over the past couple of months, Shreveport Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux’s margin for reelection error has become quite a bit smaller.

Arceneaux attained office in the majority black, plurality Democrat city almost two years ago largely because he emanated an air of competence after the previous amateurish and detached rule of his predecessor Democrat Adrian Perkins and because he maneuvered his candidacy into a runoff with Democrat former state Sen. Greg Tarver who brought a controversial past and baggage of old political rivalries within the black community to a contest he would lose. With several black Democrats building power bases for 2026 that could challenge Arceneaux successfully, in order to win reelection he would have to govern well with as little drama as possible.

Not unexpectedly, when opportunity arises Democrat councilors oppose Arceneaux. Saddled with a consent decree on water and sewerage that forced higher property taxes in bond sales and higher rates (incrementally increasing over several years), Democrat councilors dragged their feet on the rate hikes and decried it all until (inevitable, given the decree) their approval, using that as a way to cast blame on Arceneaux and deflect it from themselves for the hikes.

More conflict ahead in Monroe govt, over DBE

Looks like heads needlessly will butt again in the future between Monroe independent Mayor Friday Ellis and rookie members of the Monroe City Council, this time over what proportion of contracts should go to disadvantaged business enterprises.

A DBE is a firm owned in the majority by individuals with a presumptive characteristic such as race or sex or any individual found to be socially and economically disadvantaged on a case-by-case basis. Federal law dictates for projects of a certain size eligible for federal funds in transportation they must set an approved goal, and Louisiana requires this as well for state money going to a local project.

New councilors Democrats Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad at the start of their terms complained about DBE goals for work at Monroe Regional Airport. Using the standard methodology, that was computed at 8.31 percent, but they wanted it much higher. As the contract had been let, that could not be changed. This amount was higher than the aspirational goal set in Louisiana for aviation projects of 5.5 percent.

GOP's best plan at risk by greasing squeaky wheels

The same dynamic that sunk Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s fiscal reforms of nearly a dozen years ago now threatens GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s related measure.

In 2013, Jindal proposed sweeping but basically revenue neutral changes to the state’s fiscal structure that eliminated income taxes, increased business sales taxes, added services to taxation, got rid of some exemptions connected to mineral resources, and increasing the cigarette tax. In 2024, Landry has proposed an essentially revenue neutral plan that creates a low flat income tax with an increased filer deduction that eliminates income taxation for lower-income individuals, increases sales taxes, adds services to taxation, gets rid of some exemptions, and makes permanent a business utilities tax.

Jindal’s plan, which also included some attempt to rebate higher sales taxes passed through to individuals, foundered because it was complex in its attempt to make sure as few people’s taxes increased overall as possible. Only a bit less intensely does Landry’s plan try to do the same thing, and like Jindal’s has run into opposition from those most likely to suffer financially from the changes.

Education reform bonus for LA with Trump win

Republican former and Pres.-elect Donald Trump’s stated intentions concerning the federal government’s role in education, if at least partially pursued, would give a huge shot in the arm to Louisiana’s education reform efforts.

In recent decades, Louisiana hasn’t provided much in the way of policy leadership among the states, with the notable exception of education. First under GOP former Gov. Mike Foster, then under one of his implementers (at the level of higher education) then eventual successor Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal, the state was at the forefront of expanding educational accountability and choice, acting as a pioneer with such things as charter schools, state intervention with failing schools, evaluations of schools and teachers, beefing up curricula, and increasing student expectations. Even as the momentum slowed considerably under Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards, who backed the government monopoly model of education with as little accountability as possible, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education narrow majorities typically counter to that and leadership especially from former Superintendent of Education John White and current Superintendent Cade Brumley kept reversal away and growth occurring at the margins. This culminated in recent years with the state escaping the bottom of state rankings in pre-K12 education to its reaching its highest placement ever this year – largely because while Louisiana children held the line in achievement during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic era, other states’ learners fell back.

And in this year’s legislative session, despite a small reverse at the margins, lawmakers returned to bolder reforms by creating a mild version of education savings accounts. It would provide, in stages, creation of these vehicles that give families control over state dollars designed to educate their children, starting with lower-income households. However, program operation and expansion are dependent upon separate appropriations in a budget environment in the near term that looks very uncertain whether the money would become available.

Landry shows skill with reforms easily advancing

So far, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has shown he has what it takes to advance historic and needed fiscal reform for Louisiana government, perhaps even if here and there pops up a disgruntled Republican over it.

A basket of bills Landry championed to remake the state’s fiscal structure has met with almost no resistance during an ongoing special session largely called to deal with the issue. His plan reduces income taxes but retains almost all of a temporary sales tax hike and expanding significantly the number of services subject to this tax while excising credits and exemptions from both, rejiggers state funding mechanisms to lower unfunded accrued liabilities of teacher pension plans and converts that into pay raises for them, forces local governments to accept the few sales tax exemptions left but lets them tax the new added services and optionally allows them to exit collecting subsidization from the state for the inventory tax credit by making them a large one-time payment, and moves certain items out of the Constitution to statute.

Everything made it out of House committees almost unchanged, and several have passed the chamber and head to the Senate. To date, GOP unanimity on these items has been nearly complete, with only Republican state Rep. Joe Stagni against measures as often than not, and on only one, extending the sales tax to some digital purposes, joined by any other Republican. Even bills which featured perhaps the heaviest lift of the session, eliminating the Motion Picture Production tax credit, passed easily.

BC graybeards seek votes via imprudent budget

Fearful that the public has caught on to their misrule of the past quarter-century, the longest in the tooth of the Bossier City Council graybeards now seek to complete the destruction as a method to save their political careers and legacies.

Last week, the Council took up the 2025 budget. In its introduced form, it would have given pay raises adhering to a compensation study recently completed for the city, meaning equity raises for some city employees, parity pay raises for police, and one-time bonuses for fire personnel up to a minimum of a five percent increase. But this plan would require taking back holding the line on property taxes decided this year by instead increasing rates back to pre-assessment levels that would hike property taxes paid by just about every land owner in the city as well as blow a $2 million deficit hole from greater spending tied to the city’s general fund.

Bossier City currently doesn’t have the means to give out pay raises, which the study confirmed was needed in a number of cases to keep up with peer cities, without raising taxes and engaging in deficit spending because of the enormous amount of debt it carries. At the end of 2023, the city had $392 million in debt, but adding in interest means (minus premiums and deferrals) actually the city is on the hook for $514 million. In the past quarter-century, approximately $200 million was spent on low-priority items that tended to benefit private interests: a money-losing arena, a high-tech office building (with the parish and state), a parking garage for a developer, and, most recently, a road mostly to nowhere that hardly diminishes traffic or travel times, which features a statue that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars on which is emblazoned the names of the Bossier City establishment over the decades – including graybeards Republican councilors David Montgomery and Jeff Free, Democrat Bubba Williams, and independent Jeff Darby.

Veterans Day, 2024

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Sunday through Thursday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Easter, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, in addition to these are also Memorial Day and Veterans' Day.

With Monday, Nov. 11 being Veterans' Day, I invite you to explore the links connected to this page.

Session also to vet important judicial bills

Although fiscal reform is getting all of the attention in Louisiana’s third special session of the year, a couple of very consequential bills dealing with legislative and judicial behavior also have received vetting.

One deals with the topic of legislative continuances, or the ability of legislators and legislature employees to delay trials when they are parties to a case. Until recently, state law essentially allowed these individuals (or their opponents to finesse against them) with impunity to delay cases in the most extreme cases for years. Perhaps the most notorious involves Democrat state Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews who had received $40,000 from the family of an accused murderer for his defense, but who has used a series of continuances to keep him from coming to trial while he awaits, jailed for five years.

But last month the Supreme Court decided a case involving another defendant frustrated that his day in court has been delayed years, involving Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh and most recently GOP state Rep. Michael Melerine (who has been part of the case but only became a legislator this year). It its ruling it struck down the law as intruding upon the separation of powers, in that the Legislature interfered with the judiciary’s basic constitutional operations.

GOP retaining House majority gets Landry off hook

As Republican Gov. Jeff Landry tries to shepherd home far-reaching reforms in Louisiana’s fiscal structure that would enhance his political stature, it looks as if he avoided a major hit to that with his party retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

While the solid victory of GOP former Pres. Donald Trump will return him to office next Jan. 20 and appeared to aid in a pickup of four U.S. Senate seats, it’s looking largely stasis for the House. With about a dozen races still not definitively decided at this writing but several leaning the party’s way, it seems the House will remain in Republican hands and, in fact, projected to have the same number of seats, 220.

That, of course, is good news for the state’s Republican majority delegation, but really good news for GOP Reps. Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. Johnson serves as the speaker and Scalise the majority leader, the top two positions in the chamber. The unprecedented tenure of the pair coming from the same state in those positions can continue only if Republicans retain control of the House.

Shreveport pollster goes big, goes home big

If you think Democrats with Vice Pres. Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket just suffered a disastrous showing, wait until you hear about the launch of the Shreveport-based polling firm that went all in and then some predicting the opposite for her campaign.

Vantage Data House operates on a subscription-based model. Rather than a one-shot picture in time of a particular race or a few, subscribers have access to an entire database and can pick from many contests nationally. It claims a proprietary method that relies upon information about a respondent’s residence, party registration, race, age, and gender. The firm appears to have been running in background for perhaps a year or more, apparently gathering a national panel of voters up to 40,000 a state through the web. It claims it called correctly 29 of 30 Louisiana contests last year in a test run, and so recently rolled out the entire operation focusing on national contests this year.

It announced itself about 10 days prior to the election with a lengthy web document predicting not only that Harris would defeat Republican former Pres. Donald Trump in the so-called “swing states” minus Wisconsin plus Florida, but that nationally it would be a “blowout” in her favor. It went to length justifying its conclusions, along the way stating “Many [independent polls] prefer to be wrong with the crowd rather than risk standing as outliers, so they adjust their numbers and reinforce the faulty averages,” “Republicans are in serious trouble, though few are willing to acknowledge it,” and “A significant widening of the gender gap and Harris’ growing support among independents … is propelling her toward a potential 300+ electoral college victory.”

Except EBR, LA wraps up unexciting elections

Louisiana’s unexciting 2024 election season ended mostly with a wimper, discouraging political consultants and media outlets that endured races with little competition and controversy that stimulated less spending for their services and an early end to almost all further opportunities.

That’s because any national or state race of consequence ended this election day with little suspense. With the Supreme Court contest already decided through litigation, Republican state Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan rolled over the competition to secure the Public Service Commission District 2 post (and a good thing he won’t take office until next year, as GOP Gov. Jeff Landry can use every vote from the political right in the Legislature to help his fiscal reform package into being during the special session beginning this week). That reinforces the PSC’s Republican majority of 3-2.

This was the biennial interval without a Senate race, and all congressional incumbents won back their seats handily. In the one race not featuring any the only question was whether black Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields would win outright without a runoff in a majority-minority district built for him (for now) when he headed the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee. He did – barely over black Republican former state Sen. Elbert Guillory.

LA case set to redefine reapportionment law

Louisiana will find itself at the epicenter of reapportionment jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled this week.

The Court essentially scheduled hearing Robinson v. Callais, consolidating two cases. Two years the Court decided a case, the Milligan decision, that elevated race as a primary consideration over others in reapportionment, relying on past interpretations that didn’t explicitly do so. That framework was used in the Louisiana Robinson case to justify enjoining, without a full trial, reapportionment of congressional districts that didn’t include two majority-minority districts of the state’s six on the basis that black population proportion roughly be reflected in district demographics.

The state responded by drawing a new map, but creating a congressional district that made race the obviously dominant criterion, in violation of the law and past Court decisions. A special three-judge panel ruled as such in the Callais case. The new combined case, where the Robinson plaintiffs and the state, which claims all it wants is clarity in how to proceed, have sued the Callais defendants, allows the Court to evaluate the decision throwing out the two M/M map.

Left tries to reverse LA retreat surreptitiously

As Louisiana’s political left fights to halt a retreat that has accelerated over the past year with the election of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the most conservative Legislature ever, its tactics have begun to rely more heavily on subterfuge and “useful idiots.”

Although thought to have originated from Soviet strongman Vladimir Lenin to describe non-communist sympathizers to communism, the term seems to have come from Western European communists referring to other leftist political parties. It has evolved these days into a term more closely associated with economist Ludwig von Mises’ “useful innocents,” or people generally unaware or uncaring of the implications of a radical political agenda but who agree with its propagation for their own reasons unrelated to the underlying ideology.

Where the left understands it cannot control majoritarian political institutions or public opinion, it seeks out indirect ways, using nondemocratic agents if necessary, to try to advance its policy agenda. Some recent examples in Louisiana demonstrate the left’s willingness to find more ways to skin a cat to force its unloved agenda into policy.

Bossier schools myths prevent real tax cuts

A little more in desperation mode, the Bossier Parish School Board followed the Bossier Police Jury’s formula regarding property tax rates, relying upon an old mythology undoubtedly implicitly adhered to by all if not eagerly propagated by at least one board member willing to display his ignorance in public.

This week, the Board met in special session to establish rates on five millages for 2024. It had been levying 65.10 mills, behind only Zachary Community, Grant Parish, and Caddo Parish schools (2022-23 data). This meeting had been postponed from last month, when the Board seemed poised to roll forward rates. Every quadrennial reassessment levied rates automatically roll back to a point where those times total value of all properties not improved and under the same ownership equals that value from four years ago times previous rates; to roll forward and go above the rolled-back rates requires a two-thirds or better votes by the taxing entity.

Bossier Parish had sent the same signal, only to back down by raising four of their five but reducing its library rate more than the total rolled forward, in essence lowering overall rates. The Board played follow-the-leader and did something similar. Of its five, only four were subject to rollback, as the debt service one at 14.50 mills is exempt, and of those four the 10.31 mills salary and benefits and 10.31 mills operations and maintenance were ineligible to roll forward because they were just recently renewed, leaving just the constitutionally-set millage of 3.41 mills (due to roll back to 3.07) and the other 26.57 mills salary and benefits (due to roll back to 23.92) available to roll forward.

Big GOP early vote gains may flip EBR leader

The uptick in early voting by Republicans nationally matters even in Louisiana, where Republican former Pres. Donald Trump should win handily.

Reflecting the trend nationally, more Republicans voted in Louisiana during the early voting period (plus absentee ballots received through its end) with overall turnout number a bit down from 2020, where voting outside of election day was encouraged in light of the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, over 986,000 registrants had voted a week prior to the election, of which almost 436,000 were Democrats and almost 368,000 were Republicans, while this year turnout was off to over 961,000 or a drop of about 2.5 percent, of which almost 345,000 were Democrats and nearly 431,000 were Republicans.

The near-reversal in these figures might send some uncomfortable signals to Democrats. With early voting, it’s never known until after the fact whether it reflects fairly faithfully the proportions of the electorate that turn out on election day or if some kind of substitution effect is occurring where for one demographic group as compared to another its members who would have voted on election day instead turn out early, or delay turning out, with the overall proportions when all votes are counted following historical norms.

But there’s reason to believe the higher GOP trend presages something like the same on election day, in that it is occurring broadly coast to coast. That also for Louisiana specifically weakens the notion that the partisan difference is as a result of party-switching from Democrat to Republican that has been a steady feature in Louisiana for decades, as back in 2020 there were about 124,000 more Democrats and around 87,000 fewer Republicans than seen in 2024. Indeed, the drop in early voting number is barely more proportionally than the drop in the overall electorate, down around 72,000 as a result of population losses accelerating in the second term of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards.

Another sign that it’s likely more trend and less substitution is turnout by race. 49,000 fewer blacks showed up as opposed to 28,000 more whites. Typically, blacks have been more likely to vote early.

If in fact these numbers denote disproportionate Republican turnout – they were 25 percent higher than Democrat numbers in an overall electorate where Democrats are 8.5 percent higher – and we reasonably can expect few will defect from GOP candidates (indeed, Democrats will have a higher defection rate because the blanket primary system doesn’t penalize, at least until 2026, keeping the same registration even if years ago someone began voting consistently for the other major party candidates, as a greater proportion of Democrats have done), this should impact the two major contests on the ballot this fall parts of the state: the Public Service Commission District 2 and East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president contests.

The fantasy for this fall among Democrats at least to slow the long and steady decline in election victories in the state is for the EBR chief executive’s office to be retained by the party, either in the form of incumbent Sharon Weston Broome or by former state Rep. Ted James, and to pull off a major upset in the PSC race by having rookie Nick Laborde somehow defeat GOP state Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan and Republican former state Sen. Julie Quinn. These results bank upon turnout in a fashion that eliminates Republican educator Sid Edwards, the GOP frontrunner, in the EBR contest and puts Laborde into the PSC runoff, and then for the runoff internecine battling in EBR, a major component of District 2, stimulates Democrats into turning out while Republicans sit it out disproportionately and somehow this resonates to vault Laborde past a Republican.

It's quite the dream, but the early voting statistics threaten to turn it into a nightmare. If Republicans turn out disproportionately, Edwards likely would make a runoff against Broome or James with a real chance of winning in December. And the same dynamic might mean even as the default Democrat in the PSC race, Laborde gets aced out by both Republicans, and that internecine battle spills over into helping Edwards win.

The numbers in key parishes show this may happen. Most of EBR lies in District 2, and other large parishes in it are Lafayette, Lafourche, and Terrebonne. In 2020, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in early voting was 1.6 in EBR, 0.9 in Lafayette, 0.7 in Lafourche, and 0.6 in Terrebonne. In 2024, they were, respectively, 1.2, 0.5, 0.4, and 0.4. In EBR, about a thousand fewer whites showed up early, but about 4,000 fewer blacks did as well.

If replicated on Nov. 5, Democrats certainly will find themselves continuing to look in from the outside for the PSC seat but also in big trouble in holding on to the EBR top spot. In a few days, we’ll know whether the early voting results were this canary in a coal mine.

Greene case especially lacking political justice

The final act of the Ronald Greene incident, now drawn out to almost five-and-a-half in the making, appears nigh and increasingly obvious that the higher up the chain of command, the less justice will be done.

Throughout the years, involving federal investigations, state investigations, media investigations, and attempted prosecutions, of five Louisiana State Police troopers and Union Parish sheriff deputies, only two will face charges and one, retired trooper Kory York, just accepted a plea deal that amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.

The deal was opposed by Greene’s family. Black motorist Greene led law enforcement officers through a high-speed chase in May, 2019 that ended with a stop where officers corralled him, restrained him, stunned him, and struck some blows, even as he resisted but didn’t use any force against them. After the intervention of questionable physical tactics lasting nearly an hour, he was transported to a hospital but died.

Bossier Jury dodges bullet; problems remain

The Bossier Parish Police Jury made it over one obstacle in its doubling up as the parish’s Library Board of Control, but by no means is it out of the legal and political woods over that.

The Jury, unlike any other parish governing authority in the state, has inserted itself directly into Board affairs since 2016 by appointing its own to that. It grew increasingly bold in that regard and by 2023 all Board members were jurors. In public, at least one member has justified the complete takeover as necessary to safeguard children from unsupervised access to books with explicit sexual themes and descriptions.

A new statute aided in that task, which requires library systems to install a system that flags such material and gives parents the option of prohibiting their children from accessing that. That started as an initiative from the Attorney General’s office, then headed by Republican now-Gov. Jeff Landry, at present backed by GOP current Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill.

Good tax reform plan has small margin for error

For his tax reform by cutting a thousand things to pass into being, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry must avoid its death by a thousand cuts.

Months ago, Landry began stumping for large-scale tax reform to ensconce a more rationale and efficient fiscal structure in Louisiana that will encourage economic growth. The current system’s complexity, favoritism to certain entities, and inflexibility that encourages outsized government has for decades dampened economic development prospects.

Apparently satisfied he has something effective that can become law or part of the Constitution, he has signaled early next month he will call the Legislature into special session for a couple of weeks or so, which means he must issue the call this week. His Department of Revenue with an assist from the Legislative Fiscal Office has produced eight pieces of model legislation and fiscal analyses of each, totaling 385 pages of changes that forecasts overall state government revenues won’t change materially but likely positively in the short term.

LA campaign spending rules need more limits

Even as Louisiana legislators reduced the impact of the inherent flaw of limits to campaign contributions this year, more work is needed on the expenditure side that reduces the uncertainty involved induced by the unelected state Board of Ethics.

Over the past year, elected officials have complained they have less certainty about what are allowable expenditures from political action committees in particular. This is because the legal standard is extremely open-ended on the campaign side, and on the PAC side there hasn’t been definition at all with the assumption that it matched that of the campaign side. PACs are allowed to spend on behalf of a candidate but must do so independently of a principal campaign committee for that candidate.

This summer, the Board, which oversees campaign disclosure, initiated a rules process that would limit PAC expenditures to exclude “expenditures for the purpose of supporting an elected official’s holding of public office or party position” or “expenditures for the benefit of a candidate that would be a personal use if made from a candidate’s campaign funds,” both of which can be done from a campaign account. However, the rule has yet to be made final with legislative leaders indicating they would exercise their veto power over it if made final.

Trump win ensures more bucks for LA coastal aid

If Republican former Pres. Donald Trump doesn’t win back the presidency in just under two weeks, Louisiana could face some real headwinds in coastal protection and restoration.

Not attracting the attention that it should, this summer a Maryland Democrat Pres. Joe Biden-appointed judge threatened to shut down oil and gas exploration and extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, giving as a reason the federal National Marine Fisheries Service insufficiently took into account the endangered species designation of Rice’s whales in rules promulgated for transit around the area. Basically, her ruling said, despite the extreme unlikelihood of a repeat of the Macondo well blowout in 2010, that this had to be worked into the rules. If the rules weren’t made by December, oil and gas-related activities could have been ordered to cease.

But this week the deadline was extended to May, 2025, as the agency said it didn’t have the resources to redo the process so quickly. Notably, this puts the final product months into the next presidential administration, which could influence the final rules.

New ploy but same infirmity to film tax credit

Prepare to hear a lot of squawking from grifters enjoying, directly or indirectly, taxpayer largesse from the Motion Picture Production tax credit as it rests on the chopping block in Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s tax reform agenda. Much of it is recycled drivel, but there’s something new under the sun worth ridiculing.

The facts about the program’s wastefulness to taxpayers are indisputable. Even under the most optimistic assumptions, at best it returns 40 cents on the dollar, and subsidizes each job “created” (regardless of whether full time) to the tune of $13,300 each. Given recent data pointing to $500 million worth of credits issued since 2018, that’s a loss to taxpayers of at least $300 million (if all are redeemed, and typically within a few years are).

Supporters will spout off that, regardless of huge taxpayer costs, economic activity is created, such as an estimate that a buck of incentives induces $1.60 in economic activity. However, in isolation this is a meaningless figure because it doesn’t compare to alternate uses of funds, inside or outside of government. As compared to other tax credits, for example, the Digital Interactive Media and Software Tax Credit does better, so why not shut down the film one and transfer it all to the media and software one? More to the point, in the private sector if these dollars stayed in the hands of individuals, they almost certainly would invest differently and in enterprises that create far more jobs and wealth than making a bunch of movies and television episodes.

School group keeps shilling for adults, not kids

Having already taken a chink out of Louisiana’s elementary and secondary education standards, let’s hope the Legislature reins in whatever might come of the Greek chorus it established that advocates doing more of the same.

At the tail end of the 2024 session, the Legislature established the Louisiana House K-12 Education Study Group, ostensibly to study regulations on public schools, testing requirements, curriculum in particular as it pertains to local input and decision making, requirements of teachers that includes but not limited to training and general workload, and federal funding. Instead, it largely has honed in on how to change things to meet the needs of adults, rather than of children.

The major tactic to implement this strategy has been to go after student testing, which is built around two purposes: as a marker to identify areas of excellence and improvement among students and also to evaluate teacher and school performance. The state-mandated testing regime chafes administrators and teachers because it shines sometimes an uncomfortable spotlight on their product. The state’s student body has experienced slow but steady improvement in nationally-normed achievement in large part because of this rigor, at the expense of exposing weaknesses while aggravating school boards, because their members feel politically vulnerable in instances when accountability measures reveal their district’s schools aren’t doing so well, and administrators and teachers feel professionally pressured at schools whose students don’t show adequate achievement, growth, or progression.

LA brain drain fault of higher education

It’s called singing for your supper, but it shouldn’t be a flight from reality for Louisiana higher education.

Data reveal not only that the number of recipients of Taylor Opportunity Program for Students senior college awards has declined significantly in the last few years but also those eligible for the highest award level, Honors, disproportionately are turning down the free taxpayer-aided gift. Honors eligibility requires a 3.5 grade point average for a set of required courses and an ACT standardized test score of 27, making them eligible for the award of tuition mostly paid plus $800. The regular award requires a 2.5 GPA and 20 on the ACT for all but the $800 lagniappe.

The blame for this, according to one Board of Regents official, is unenlightened legislators and their greedy taxpaying constituents, with many of the student cohort opting for out-of-state schools offering better financial aid packages because of the inability for TOPS to cover the full cost of attendance. Starting in academic year 2016-17, the Legislature stopped indexing TOPS but would have to approve annually increases in the award to match tuition increases (fees aren’t included, and these have risen as well), which it has done infrequently since.

BC debt behind call for tax, fee increases

What Bossier City gave to taxpayers with one hand in 2024 the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration lobbies to take with the other in 2025, creating an election-year problem for graybeard city councilors.

Lost in all the excitement last week over the eventually-thwarted term limits power play instigated by those graybeards – Republican David Montgomery and Jeff Free plus Democrat Bubba Williams and independent Jeff Darby – with their rookie lackey Republican Vince Maggio was the budget workshop presented by the Council, hearing from city Chief Administrative Officer Amanda Nottingham about what the 2025 budget will look like that the Council will have to grapple with over the next two months, starting next week. It ended up as an object lesson as to the wages of the profligacy practiced by the graybeards over the past decade and more.

Nottingham painted a discouraging picture. Under current assumptions, she foresaw a $3 million deficit because expenses would increase faster than revenues. The main culprit she fingered was escalating insurance costs although the lingering problem of the state trying to shore up underfunded retirement systems, by passing costs onto local governments, also contributed.

Don't let up in reshaping LA higher education

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and legislative majorities must not let the Louisiana State University System, or any of the state’s higher education boards, off the hook because, for now, they appear to be kowtowing.

Last week at the LSU Board of Supervisors’ meeting the panel, fresh off putting on board some Landry appointments that included Chairman Jimmie Woods, Sr. who Landry named to lead it under a new law granting him that authority, passed a resolution to review all programs in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision that banned preferential treatment by race in higher education admissions. Even though the decision addressed only admissions, the Board used it as a justification, as well as the Legislature’s Act 641 of 2024 that requires reporting on the existence of programs based upon racial or other preferences, that to comply with the act and the decision it would shut down any such programs or bureaucracies. The same resolution implemented the Kalven Principle in the system (the LSU Faculty Senate recently advocated for that), or that institutions remain officially neutral in commenting upon political issues, something that system Pres. William Tate IV had pursued as a matter of policy previously after some years of silence on the subject.

With that, the Board also ratified something long advocated in the space: a ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion statement requirements for hiring faculty members, which serve no useful purpose in educating and requires (at least lip service to) a mindset antithetical to true scholarly inquiry. This echoed a bill that received a committee hearing in the last legislative regular session that was held in abeyance for Louisiana’s four higher education systems to address issues it raised, including this one.

Rejection sends BC to historic city elections

With its strategy blown up earlier this week, the Bossier political establishment finds itself on the back foot as perhaps the most consequential set of elections in Bossier City’s history looms next spring.

It’s hard to know what has delivered more whiplash – contradictory pronouncements of what is the law made by Bossier City’s Legal Department or the saga of term limits – but for sure is that events at the State Bond Commission upended again the tussle over term limits on city councilors and the mayor. That’s as a result on Oct. 14 of the SBC taking the rare step of deferring to send to the Secretary of State (with a deadline to receive that day) the city’s request for voters to vet on Dec. 7 three items.

What first began as a forced march, which turned into a death march, but which finally became a quick march, Bossier City’s politically-motivated Charter Review Commission spat out three “amendments” for review which the SBC must perform by law for administrative rectitude, two of which unambiguously met the definition of a discrete and specific change in the city’s Charter: one placing a relaxed three-term non-lifetime prospective limit on the mayor, and another on city councilors. The political establishment behind the Commission with its members and allies on the panel pulled out all the stops to try to make the Dec. 7 ballot in an effort to derail a citizen petition that presented to voters strict three-term lifetime and retroactive limits on the mayor and councilors.