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25-Jun-08
Session Review: A Legislative Report Card
Workforce development"the budget"a possible income tax reduction? The new Legislature’s first regular session adjourns at the end of June. What bills made it through to the Governor’s desk and how will they affect you and the state? Tune in to Louisiana Public Square on Wednesday, June 25th as we host Session Review: A Legislative Report Card.
Panelists:
- Sen. Eric LaFleur, (D) from Ville Platte, Finance and Joint Budget Committees
- Sen. Mike Michot, (R) from Lafayette, Chairman of Finance and Joint Budget Committees
- Rep. Jim Tucker, (R) from Terrytown, Speaker of the House
- Barry Erwin, President & CEO of Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL)
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BACKGROUNDThis session of the Legislature may well be remembered for just two of the many items it considered over the past 12 weeks: the dismantling of the Stelly Tax plan and the legislative pay raise.
Several years ago, legislators passed the Stelly Plan, which reduced the state’s dependence on sales taxes and increased its dependence on personal income taxes to fund state government. The 2008 legislature - acting independently of the governor - retained the Plan’s low sales tax, but reduced personal income tax rates to about what they were before the Stelly Plan went into effect. That change will pull about $300 million out of the treasury and into the hands of mostly middle and upper income tax payers. Proponents of the legislation said Louisiana citizens were being over-taxed. Opponents claimed that the new law would increase Louisiana’s dependence on the price of oil and peg state revenues to the inevitable fluctuations of sales taxes.
But the warm feelings that may have been generated by the tax cut turned into a firestorm of rage when legislators voted themselves a doubling of their pay. Some of the anger was directed at the governor when he said he would not veto the raise. Jim Brandt, President of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, said, "I think the pay raise issue will probably be the defining issue of this entire session. It will be how it will be remembered."
The following summary of highlights from the 2008 Legislative Session is provided courtesy of the Council for A Better Louisiana [CABL]. CABL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization working on issues in the public interest. Visit CABL.org to join CABL.
The CABLWire for Thursday, June 19, 2008 to Wednesday, June 25, 2008
HIGHLIGHTSThe Final Flurry
By law the current regular legislative session must end by 6 p.m. Monday and you would be hard pressed to find anyone around the Capitol who doesn’t think that magic hour can’t come soon enough. Though the debate over legislative pay raises has dominated just about everything over the last couple of weeks, a number of the session’s major issues have become pretty much resolved in the last several days. Perhaps the biggest is the budget.
Budget
The Senate has now passed a $29.8 billion state budget and sent it back to the House of Representatives to see if they will approve the version senators finalized last night. The Senate made a number of significant changes, but there don’t appear to be any major controversies. The biggest changes had to do with restoring funding to programs or initiatives that House members cut a few weeks ago. Most were in education and health care, and most have been restored at or near the levels the governor originally proposed. Both chambers have also approved the state’s capital outlay program which funds construction projects around the state. Showing rare restraint, the Legislature added only $20 million in new projects to whittle down a huge backlog of older projects that are left over from last year.
Higher Education
It takes a lot of votes to allow state college boards to raise tuition at Louisiana universities - two thirds of both chambers of the Legislature, to be exact. After action this week, legislation to allow for modest increases in tuition over the next four years has passed the House and Senate and, barring any last minute glitches, should be sent to the governor for his signature. Louisiana has done a good job in recent years of increasing state funding to higher education, but tuition rates that are significantly lower than most other states have kept overall funding for our post-secondary institutions far behind their peers around the region and the nation. On a related note, the changes made by the Senate to the budget restored about $13 million to higher education to bring its funding back to the regional average for only the second time in almost 30 years.
Workforce Development
After languishing on the legislative calendar for weeks, Governor Jindal’s proposal to revamp workforce training efforts in the state is moving again. Similar bills are awaiting final passage on both the House and Senate floors and should receive favorable votes with little controversy. Funding for a "rapid response" training program to get skilled workers into the workforce quickly to meet the needs of employers has been restored to the tune of $23 million.
Public Education
The biggest issues in education in the final weeks had to do with money. In the budget the Senate restored just over $20 million in cuts, the largest of which was $12.5 million for a new initiative to help elementary school students with reading and math. Legislators also approved the $3.2 billion Minimum Foundation Program which is the funding formula for all of public education. This week also saw the final passage of the governor’s $10 million pilot "voucher" or scholarship program for New Orleans students. It would allow a limited number of children from failing public schools to attend private schools. Finally, the House is set to consider a bill already passed by the Senate which would gradually expand funding for the state’s LA-4 pre-k program to cover all four-year-olds (not just at-risk children) if the dollars are appropriated.
What’s Left?
While most of the questions have pretty much been answered about most of the major legislation this session, there are a few bills of interest to CABL that are still unresolved.
The legislation to provide more appropriate financial disclosure for volunteer members of boards and commissions has passed the Senate and is awaiting debate today in the House. CABL supports this legislation and believes it will make it easier for citizens to offer their public service on state boards and commissions.
On Friday the House will debate SB 499 which makes changes in the definition of a "lobbyist." Again, these are needed changes which will allow citizens greater leeway in interacting with their state government without having to register as a "lobbyist." Professional lobbyists and governmental relations specialists would still have to register and file financial disclosure reports.
Finally, legislation is still pending that would make much-needed reforms in the state’s capitol outlay process for funding state construction projects. Two competing approaches are still in play and CABL hopes the differences between the administration and some legislative leaders can be resolved to assure passage of some type of meaningful reform legislation in this area.
Barry Erwin,
President and Chief Executive Officer of Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL)Barry Erwin is a Louisiana native who serves as President of the Council for A Better Louisiana (CABL). CABL is a statewide, nonprofit membership organization that works on issues that impact the quality of life in Louisiana. CABL is involved in numerous policy issues at the state level, including education, state fiscal policies and governmental ethics. The organization also operates the nationally recognized Leadership Louisiana program, which now boasts an alumni base of more than 600 state and community leaders from across Louisiana. Erwin began doing work for CABL in 1995 as a partner in IMPACT Strategies, a Baton Rouge-based public affairs and issues management firm. He joined CABL as Senior Vice President in January 2000.
Prior to working in public and governmental affairs, Erwin spent 15 years as a television journalist. As a reporter he specialized in covering both local and state government. For seven years Erwin was capitol correspondent for WBRZ-TV, the ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a past president and former board member of the Capitol Correspondents Association, an organization representing the journalists who cover state government in Louisiana. His work as a journalist has garnered state, regional, and national awards.
Erwin worked on numerous public affairs projects prior to joining CABL. Issue areas included education, health care and the judiciary as well as advising clients in the political arena.
Erwin graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has served as guest lecturer in political science and public relations at Louisiana State University, and taught professional journalists in Zambia, Africa as part of a U.S. State Department program to aid emerging democracies.
Senator Eric La Fleur is a partner in the law firm of Mahtook & La Fleur with offices in Ville Platte, Lafayette Opelousas, and Houston, Texas. He is a graduate of LSU and Tulane, earning a B.A. in French, Economics and History. He earned his law degree from Tulane Law School. His focus of practice is private, commercial and public transactions. He is one of a handfull of "red book" listed bond attorneys in the state of Louisiana. He was elected to an open seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1999 and reelected again in 2003. In 2007, he won an open seat in the Louisiana State Senate. That senatorial district consists of approximately 140,000 people in the following four rural parishes: Allen, Avoyelles, St. Landry and Evangeline. He serves on the senate Finance and Criminal Justice Committees and is Vice-chairman of the Committee on Education. In addition, Senator La Fleur serves on the board of directors of the Sacred Heart Foundation, LSU College Board of Arts and Sciences and Savoy Medical Center. He also plays saxophone with the local band, Deja Vu. Before entering private practice, La Fleur served as a felony prosecutor under District Attorney Harry Connick in New Orleans and for the Louisiana Department of Justice under Richard Ieyoub. He is a 1982 graduate of Sacred Heart High School. He is married to the former Julie Morein, a 1997 Sacred Heart High School graduate. Together they make their home in Ville Platte and have one son, Atticus.
Sen. Mike Michot,
(R) from Lafayette, Chairman of Finance and Joint Budget Committees
Senator Mike Michot has been representing the Lafayette area in the Louisiana Legislature for the past twelve years. District 23 State Senator Michot came to the Senate from the Louisiana House of Representatives, where he served from 1996-2000. Senate District 23 comprises most of the city and parish of Lafayette.
Senator Michot owns Premier Medical Equipment, a major supplier of medical equipment and medical supplies. He is also real estate developer, and is active in community service organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club of Acadiana, the American Heart Association and the United Way.
He graduated from Cathedral-Carmel High School in Lafayette and holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now known as the University of Louisiana.
For the past four sessions, Senator Michot served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Consumer Affairs and Technology, and has drafted several pieces of legislation encouraging the integration of technology into the governmental process.
In the Senate, Senator Michot will now serve as Chairman of the Finance committee, appropriating state funds, including the cash portion of the comprehensive state capital budget. He also serves on the Commerce, Consumer Protection and International Affairs Committee, Judiciary A and Natural Resources committees.
State Representative Jim Tucker was elected to represent House District 86, which serves Jefferson Parish and the Westbank of Orleans Parish, in March 2001. Tucker served on the Insurance, Labor and Transportation, Highways and Public Works committees from 2001 to 2008 and was Chairman of the Republican Legislative Delegation from 2004 to 2008. He was elected Speaker of the House in January, 2008, ** the first Republican Speaker of the House since Reconstruction. As Speaker, Tucker named the chairmen of seventeen House standing committees. He is the Managing Member of Tucker Properties, a real estate development firm. He was the Founding Partner of Holley, Tucker, Bossier and Nosacka Financial Advisors. Tucker graduated from O.P. Walker Senior High School in New Orleans. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of New Orleans. He is married to the former Marisol Fernandez
Some questions and comments may be included in the program.
