Bonus bucks should restore, pay down; nothing new

The relief some hoped would materialize did this week for Louisiana, but the bonus must be spent wisely in a manner that eventually shrinks government.

The state’s Revenue Estimating Conference this week determined that the state would have $130 million more for this, fiscal year 2024-25, and $139 million more predicted for next year, FY 2026. Policy-makers around the capitol had hoped to hear that the previous December projections had undershot what would be actual and forecast performance, but until now faced uncertainty with a raft of tax code changes kicking in at the start of this calendar year.

As these numbers didn’t apply to previous fiscal years (the other REC meetings throughout the year often take a look back into the just-completed fiscal year) which would be declaration of a surplus, the REC had the option to declare the additional revenues as recurring for this current period and obviously for the next, which it did. That means anything goes as far as expenditures, if even spent, as opposed to tagging these as nonrecurring where only specified, essentially one-time, expenditures could occur.

Rent seekers run faulty sob stories by BC Council

Sob stories echoed throughout the Bossier City Council chambers at its last meeting, as rent-seekers bookended the gathering intent on maintaining at least some their grifts on the citizenry or apologizing without taking responsibility for corporate mistakes.

First up during the invited public comment phase of the meeting were several representatives of apartment complex owners in Bossier City, encompassing a few thousand units. They were outraged because the close-to-free ride the city had been giving them on its sanitation fee ended early this year.

Until recently, the city charged $12 a month per multifamily dwelling water meter – whether a small strip or an entire complex of apartments, often water service isn’t apportioned by unit but the cost of which is included in rent, as it comes to all through one single intake for a set of units. But at the start of the year, it changed that to $12 per unit (the typical residence now pays $36) as part of a financial rejiggering designed to erase growing deficit spending bringing to the brink of red ink this year the city enterprise fund that collects and pays out for solid waste pickup, street cleaning, median mowing, beautification, and animal control.

Edwards out, Landry in, public sees better things

More evidence of the Landry effect – or, if you will, absence of the Edwards effect – surfaced with the release of Louisiana State University’s 2025 Louisiana Survey, which also may shed light upon the policy agenda of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.

For many years now the survey has asked similar questions of participants, and this year’s results revealed a growing optimism not seen in several years. After hitting record levels, in the neighborhood of two-thirds, over the past three years of state residents saying the state was headed in the wrong direction, this March/April’s survey saw that number drop to parity with those opining the state was headed in the right direction. Internal numbers show the turnaround occurred because more numerous Republicans to a larger degree changed their minds (extrapolated; it’s not a panel construct but in statistical terms the aggregate results from different samples each year have a high likelihood of representativeness), even as Democrats to a somewhat lesser degree became more negative, plus respondents unaffiliated with either major party also turned more positive.

Largely the same dynamic was replicated in confidence in state government to address concerns. After hitting a high in Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s first term, this slowly eroded, levelled off in the first term of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards, then cratered during his second term before rebounding a bit in 2024 after Landry assumed office and shooting higher in 2025. Republicans’ views drove it up, while Democrats’ basically didn’t change.

Tate departure offer opportunity for LSU, system

The Louisiana State University System rests on the precipice of a potentially exciting new era now that Pres. William Tate IV will fly the coop, if some basic issues can be resolved.

Tate took the Rutgers University system job, which is in a bigger state, has more money and students, and caters more to his leftist sentiments. In the scheme of things, it is a step up from the LSU gig, and an inevitable move by him.

Understand that there’s only a limited amount of destination jobs in higher education. Perhaps maybe three dozen prominent private schools and a dozen or so state systems qualify, and those who aim for that churn as quickly as they can through the ranks of all other schools and systems. Anybody who stays in one place for more than a few years has some kind of attachment to the school and area, which if a quality administrator is a blessing for that institution.

Monroe council majority throwing too many bombs

At some point, the nicknamed “Brown Bombers” on Monroe’s City Council need to stop throwing bombs and to start trying to govern more responsibly.

Almost a year ago two new councilors, Democrats Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad, joined the panel after city elections. With another Democrat who won reelection, Juanita Woods, since then the three have made it a point to inject an adversarial relationship as much as possible into their dealings with independent Mayor Friday Ellis. Accordingly, they have picked up the appellation from supporters in their districts that comprise southern Monroe, which have majority black electorates and they themselves are black.

The latest Council meeting provided two more instances where it seemed the body’s majority acted primarily to oppose for opposition’s sake Ellis’ governance. One involved unspecified but hinted activities in the Fire Department where the majority initiated the process to invoke an investigation. Section 2-07 of the city charter allows it to call one where it may subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony and require the production of evidence. However, that takes a final vote of four of five councilors, and neither member of the Council minority, Republicans Gretchen Ezernack and Doug Harvey, indicated through their opposition to the introduction, seems willing to go along.

Simien win challenges GOP mayor race success

Earlier this month, the election of independent Marshall Simien, Jr. to the Lake Charles mayoralty marked a curious outlier to recent success that Republicans and white candidates generally have had in Louisiana’s largest cities, and may flash a warning signal to them.

Simien defeated two-term incumbent Republican Nic Hunter in the May 3 runoff. While Hunter’s proportion of the vote barely increased from what he gathered in the Mar. 29 general election, Simien’s essentially corralled support from all others, making up more than an 18-percentage point gap. Hunter is white while Simien, who among other elected and appointed positions in government served a couple of terms on the City Council prior to a previous mayoral run in 2017, is black.

Until May, Republicans had hit their high-water mark in executive control of the ten most populated cities (in a trio of cases, consolidated with the parish) in the state. While New Orleans had a Democrat as mayor, all of Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, St. George (newly a city with an elected mayor as of March), Lake Charles, Kenner and Bossier City – second through eighth in population – had Republican chief executives. Monroe had an independent and Alexandria a Democrat.

Stipend extension not best pay raise strategy

By inserting the stipend Louisiana public school employees have enjoyed for the past two years into the budget for next year, legislators may end up writing checks with their mouths that later they can’t cash.

Somewhat surpassingly, the fiscal year 2026 budget contains, for a third year in a row, a $2,000 stipend for educators and $1,000 for staff. Extending it one more year wasn’t supposed to happen in the wake of the defeat of a constitutional amendment that used educational trust funds to pay down unfunded accrued liabilities in pension plans, which then would have the leftover funds no longer encumbered at the local level passed along into permanent raises.

But House Republicans pulled a rabbit from their hat when the Appropriations Committee, with full support of its Democrats, included the raises again. It took near-magic to do so: blocking $91 million dollars in funding for new vehicle and heavy equipment purchases for state agencies, cutting $26 million dollars in benefits for ineligible Medicaid recipients, plowing in $20 million dollars because of a hiring freeze, by paying down debt early to save $25 million dollars in interest, and halting a $30 million intensive tutoring program in the Department of Education.

Unaccountable Port lobbies to keep privileges

Perhaps it should not surprise that the most secretive local government in northwest Louisiana, the Port of Caddo-Bossier, has been involved some double-secret moves, if not backed by misinformation whether intentionally deceptive, by officials in area local governments.

The Port was established over 60 years ago to govern commerce and traffic as a port. Practically speaking, this means it builds infrastructure around land it leases to tenants. It is governed by a commission of nine appointees, political insiders all, by Shreveport, Bossier City, Caddo Parish, and Bossier City. It rakes in the statutory maximum of 2.5 mills of property tax from residents in those parishes. That’s good enough to gather over $7 million annually and to acquire assets of over $200 million while on the hook for $58 million in debt (2023 numbers; those for 2024 were presented at today’s meeting). (That debt will increase, perhaps substantially, as at its April meeting besides officially levying the property tax for 2025 it also authorized up to $750 million in new debt issuance.)

But statute also gives it enormous powers over what is defined as the “port area” – Bossier and Caddo Parishes in their entirety – and protects it from interference from any other local government. Following a 2021 law that added that and extensively expanded its powers, that gives it pretty free run to do whatever, at whatever cost. For example, it snookered Bossier City into giving it potentially a free waterworks that, unless some unlikely assumptions transpire, will be a net cost to Bossier Citians. It also has the power to expand through expropriation unhindered by any other local government, and, as an economic development entity, to make deals out of view of taxpayers.

Good bill advances DEI shuttering in education

The substitute bill for Republican state Rep. Emily Chenevert’s HB 421 finishes an incomplete job in a way that promotes unbiased learning and respectful treatment of individuals.

The bill, which advanced, on a party-line vote in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee with all from the GOP in favor, in the form of substitute as it met with substantial change, prohibits public colleges’ instructional content that relates to concepts of critical race theory, white fragility, white guilt, systemic racism, institutional racism, anti-racism, systemic bias, implicit bias, unconscious bias, intersectionality, gender identity, allyship, race-based reparations, race-based privilege, or the use of pronouns; and in promoting the differential treatment of any individual or group of individuals based on race or ethnicity, imputed bias, or other ideology related to diversity, equity, or inclusion; or any course with a course description, course overview, course  objectives, proposed student learning outcomes, written examinations, or written or oral assignments that include this content  The original form of the bill included only a prohibition against preferential treatment by suspect categories by state government agencies, but added to that dismantling parts of any state government agency involved in these activities and oversight of this by the Legislative Auditor with possible corrective actions by the majoritarian branches.

On the latter score, it significantly improves upon actions – in the case of the Louisiana State University System, but inaction by the other three higher education management boards – to eliminate in name these concepts and applications of these that collectively are known as diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. DEI assumes that non-minority race or sex individuals by nature unreasonably discriminate against others and therefore government must bestow privileges on the other individuals to account for the difference.

Vanity only reason for Edwards Senate run

This might be fun, to see perhaps the most arrogant, partisan, and fraudulent governor in Louisiana history getting his ego busted.

It appears that Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards has held multiple conversations with Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about running for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat in 2026. It’s not clear who is courting whom, but the electoral map is such that for Democrats to take control of the chamber they would have to have an extremely good election night, which means recruiting candidates that stand at least a ghost of a chance of winning. Seemingly, Edwards said to check back with him later this summer.

Edwards doesn’t fall into that category. He rode into office presenting himself as a generic blank slate but in a manner to make voters think he was conservative by emphasizing alleged traditional social values. He became the only governor ever to win reelection with fewer votes than he did upon initial consecutive election (although that’s a small sample size given that was not possible constitutionally until 1975), barely skating back in by riding the Trump 45 economic recovery wave (even as within the state he pursued an agenda at odds with the ideas that triggered it).