Louisiana's legislature today gets down to the business of passing laws, and they have a lot they plan to work on.
The recent failure at the ballot box of Governor Jeff Landry's tax overhaul has the senate president thinking about teacher pay.
State Senate President Cameron Henry says addressing teacher pay is among his top priorities.
"I would like to give the teachers a permanent raise."
Henry says the constantly re-approving a $2,000 stipend is pointless.
"Everyone says, 'well, the stipend's not reoccurring,' and I said, 'well, we gave it to them last year, we gave it to them the year before, we want to continue giving it to them every year. It's pretty much recurring!'"
He says they must fix it.
"It's not fair to do to teachers. You shouldn't have to come to Baton Rouge every single year and beg for a stipend. So we've got to do better with that. Hopefully we can make some changes with the money that we have tied up this session and be able to move forward with a pay raise of some sort."
The Metairie Republican told WWL's Newell Normand they also need to come up with tens of millions for the Louisiana State Police, Children and Family Services, and the state Department of Health.
Other top issues in the session are expected to include addressing the nation's highest automobile insurance rates, tax exemptions, tax reform, bills related to the state’s TOPS scholarship program, the state’s congressional map, THC products, how local authorities interact with federal immigration enforcement officers, criminal electronic monitoring and more.
Related
