The end of the regular Louisiana legislative session on June 25 brought with it the beginning of an onslaught of summaries of just what happened from a variety of our collaborative partners throughout the state. As of this writing, most of you that keep up with state legislative issues are aware of the bills that passed or failed and how they will impact us as citizens and taxpayers of Louisiana.
Our partners at the East St. Tammany Chamber hosted a legislative wrap-up luncheon. A majority of our northshore legislative delegation members gave brief points summarizing how they felt about the session. Most of what I heard from them was frustration. Of course it is always frustrating, even for a family to try to make ends meet, when the income does not meet the needs and expenses. Our legislators’ frustration centers on the way the state budget has grown in the last 20 years at an extremely fast rate.
Among the words used to describe the session were: bedlam, ridiculous, no priorities, and on and on.
Basic points made by the legislators present included an opinion that Louisiana’s higher education model is not working. Both higher education and healthcare need to be right-sized and it is the legislators’ job to do it. Neither of these was accomplished during the session. These major issues have still not been put at the top of the list where they need to be.
The good news is that popular opinion at the Capitol maintains that our new northshore delegation is among the best delegation groups, and as a whole, is respected by other legislators across the state. They worked incredibly hard on our behalf, but still have a lot of work to do, in many areas.
In other good news, finally St. Tammany Parish and the northshore are now recognized as a major parish and region in the state. It is our pledge, together with our partners at the East Chamber and the Northshore Business Council, to continue to work in unison, to get behind our legislators in prioritizing the issues and continuing a strong quality of life in St. Tammany and throughout all of Louisiana.
For example, the chamber supported several bills this legislative session pertaining to "roll forwards," which would prevent non-elected bodies from rolling millages forward without a vote of the people. This is a complicated issue. Many of us do not fully grasp how property taxes are calculated and collected. In an attempt to educate our members and clarify these processes and their effects, we sent out a detailed explanation to our members on this very subject last month.
In addition, in order to be front and center in Baton Rouge on a regular basis and ensure our legislative priorities are carried out, our chamber, along with the East St. Tammany Chamber and the Northshore Business Council, are considering the feasibility of a plan to move forward with hiring a full-time legislative advocate in the near future. In the past two years we had a part-time advocate; we have learned that the tasks needed to get the desired results require a full-time person.
It is through actions such as these that the chamber continues to both collaborate with our relevant partners to become a stronger voice of business in our parish, and also remain valuable to our members.
For more information on the chamber, please visit www.sttammanychamber.org and be sure to join us on Facebook and Twitter.