President Barack Obama will soon sign the $787 billion economic stimulus bill into law, but state officials are looking at the numbers, trying to figure out where Louisiana fits into the plan. The Times-Picayune reports that some $4 billion in spending and tax cuts could come into Louisiana, but it's unclear what's going to go where.
State transportation officials are confident that the bill will provide $308 million in new federal money, which must be spent on projects that can get under way within 120 days. An additional $108 million in transportation financing will flow to local governments, with about $27 million of that going to the New Orleans area.
But health care and higher education officials were still trying to calculate how much money they will get, and whether the windfall will be enough to offset the $1.65 billion budget shortfall the state faces next year.
The Advocate reports that Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals "may steer clear of all the health-care money available in the federal economic package:"
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said the federal government has overestimated — $1.7 billion over the next 27 months — how much the state would receive.
A more accurate estimate is based on actual usage: $1.1 billion, Levine said.
“We are trying to be realistic about what we are really going to have available,” Levine said.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again, it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to go public this year.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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Sounds good to me.