Recent editorials from Louisiana newspapers:
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Jan. 28
American Press of Lake Charles on an early education grant:
Louisiana has been awarded nearly $8 million to improve its early childhood education program with a little over $7 million of that funding coming from the federal Preschool Development Grant and about $800,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
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“In recent years Louisiana has worked diligently to create an integrated, efficient early childhood education system through policies that better serve our children and families,” state Superintendent John White said in a news release.
“This award is a validation of the state’s approach and sets us up to take ambitious next steps.”
There are four major areas the state plans to designate the funding:
. Create locally-led pilot programs that will establish governing structures to guide local plans and funding for early childhood.
. Incorporate family homes into a statewide network of childhood education providers to ensure all family homes have access to the resources and support need to provide their children with high-quality learning.
. Expand professional development opportunities for teachers and equip them with tools and resources needed to provide high-quality experiences for their students.
. Implement a program to build efficiencies by sharing resources across childcare sites, like shared substitute teacher pools or shared purchasing to maximize funding.
The department said subgrants worth more than $3.75 million will be added to the grant money to establish the initiatives.
The grant performance period will run from Dec. 31, 2018, through Dec. 30, 2019.
Melanie Bronfin, executive director of the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children said the grant funding “will provide us support to enhance the quality of our early care and education programs.”
Louisiana serves about 7 percent of in-need children from ages birth to 2, and 33 percent of in-need children who are 3. More than 3,100 children are on a waiting list for services.
This grant money will be a blessing for the state. We’re looking forward to seeing the future opportunities now in store for Louisiana’s children.
Online: https://www.americanpress.com/
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Jan. 30
The Advocate on tax breaks for Exxon Mobil:
Who is the single largest taxpayer in East Baton Rouge Parish? It’s not a trick question, but an insight into what’s important in an overheated and unfortunate debate about tax breaks and economic development.
The answer, as recent headlines might suggest, is ExxonMobil, the oil and chemical giant which has been a valued part of Baton Rouge and Louisiana for more than a century. But all is not well in what should be a mutually supportive relationship.
The company is angry that Baton Rouge’s school board has turned down tax breaks for two projects. It is withdrawing similar applications for tax relief from other local governments - adding $6.4 million over 10 years to ExxonMobil’s tax bill, something the company didn’t anticipate.
That kind of unpredictability isn’t good for business, and the board’s 5-4 vote has provoked a bitter dispute between business groups on one side and community activists and teacher unions on the other.
This debate should be watched all over the state, as a once-automatic industrial tax break - far and away the largest such incentive in the country - is now working through a change kicked off by Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2016. He decreed that the breaks, which rob local governments by state action, should be signed off by local governments.
That makes sense, but for the first time, local governments have taken out on a few companies long-standing resentments against the tax breaks. Smaller ones have been turned down in Shreveport and New Orleans; much bigger ones have been approved, indeed almost waved through, in major industrial parishes like Ascension and St. James. One application for ExxonMobil across the river from Baton Rouge was locally approved.
For the breaks to be denied to the central facilities of an iconic company with a long-term commitment to the region is dramatic and ought to cause some consideration of whether the school board has gone too far. As the governor notes, though, similar tax breaks in Texas have to be approved by local governments too. “The system for getting an ITEP is very similar to that in Texas,” Edwards told reporters and editors meeting with him at The Advocate.
As ExxonMobil representatives have pointedly noted many times, the company is expanding in the Gulf South. More investments are possible for Baton Rouge and we endorse them, as does the governor and local leadership. Breaks under the Edwards rules will provide, in contrast to the old days, 20 percent of property tax revenues to local government right away, without waiting 10 years.
We need some appreciation from grass roots groups of the pragmatic reality that Texas or other states will also offer big tax breaks. Also, economic expansion will be pulled toward parishes that are more receptive to the tax breaks.
Maybe it’s not a perfect system, but it is the one that we live in.
Online: https://www.theadvocate.com/
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Jan. 27
The Courier of Houma on the state’s coastal plan:
Some crucial local projects are among the state’s coastal plan for the next several years.
Gov. John Bel Edwards outlined the plan last week in Baton Rouge.
The good news for this region is that it is well-represented in the state’s outlook. That is a good sign in that it should deliver some vital state money on projects that will work together to make us safer from future storms.
This is an important issue here, as coastal erosion, land subsidence and seawater rise have conspired to make us ever more vulnerable to tidal surge - even at times when hurricanes or strong storms aren’t close to us.
“This is a threat to the 2 million people who live and work along the coast,” the governor said. “There is a sense of urgency that we just cannot escape.”
Laying out the dangers we face can create a troubling picture. Of course, acknowledging the truth - as scary as it is - is a necessary part of realistically planning for the future and protecting ourselves from those dangers.
The governor has been an active proponent for coastal protection and restoration, and his current plan should deliver more of the help we will increasingly need.
For instance, it includes money, from the state’s share of federal oil revenue, for the following local projects:
- The Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system.
- Levee work on Grand Isle.
- A Bayou Lafourche pump station.
- The Bayou Chene flood control structure. This is located in St. Mary Parish, but it has local impact by keeping water at bay.
- The Houma Navigation Canal Lock Complex.
These projects won’t make us safe, but they will increase our level of protection. And that is what our strategy has to be in the coming years. As long as we are living this close to the open water of the Gulf and as long as that water is creeping ever closer to our homes and businesses, we won’t be safe.
But if we work together with state, local and federal authorities, we should be able to take actions now that will help us better weather future storms.
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Online: https://www.houmatoday.com/
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