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And one of the things that did happen was to kind of, you know, work with the House and compromise with them.

The legislative session comes to an end.

And the hurricanes in Louisiana led two companies failing, in many cases.

One in five Louisiana homeowners lose their coverage.

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Aide teaching children to read.

They need to know how laws are made and they need to know about the three branches of government and what each branch does.

Louisiana Supreme Court Justices work to reduce crime.

Hi everyone.

I'm cursing here.

Thursday night concluded the 2023 legislative session with lawmakers getting down to the wire, finalizing that $45 billion budget in the final moments of session.

How to spend a $2.2 billion surplus was hotly debated for weeks.

In the end, lawmakers funded infrastructure projects, a one year stipend for teacher pay raises and paying down retirement debt.

But the final budget cut about 100 million in funding from the Department of Health, causing a stir in the legislature.

The governor concluded his last legislative session, saying he would do everything in his power to eliminate or reduce that cut.

I said in my opening address to the legislature.

Promises were made, promises were kept, and progress was delivered.

And we did that together.

The legislative session ended in a frenzy Thursday night, with lawmakers struggling to finalize that $45 billion budget and that $2.2 billion surplus.

I spoke with Barry Irwin, the president and CEO of a Council for a Better Louisiana, about the highlights.

So first, let's talk about the budget.

They had a total budget of $45 billion with a $2.2 billion surplus, which is huge.

And of course, this was the source of a lot of stress and haggling among the lawmakers.

But where did that money ultimately go?

Well, a lot of places, But I think primarily you can kind of point to two things.

One, a lot of that was always intended to go to like projects, infrastructure projects, coastal restoration, you know, local, you know, road and sewer and water projects, all of that.

So a big chunk of it went to that.

And that's a very good thing.

The other part that became a dynamic in the session was trying to put money into retiring and getting rid of debt liabilities in the retirement system.

The House wanted to use just about all of it for that.

They ended up putting about 450 million towards that.

So when you put those two together, that's kind of the bulk of where that $2.2 billion went.

All right.

And so how much of that was in line with what the governor himself asked for at the beginning of session because he had outlined exactly what he wanted the budget to look like?

I would say quite a lot because there were a lot of projects that were funded.

And we're talking about bridges and, you know, coastal, all these big, big ticket items.

A lot of those got funded.

I think the you know, the kind of turn that did surprise people a little bit was this focus that the House was going to have on the retirement systems.

I mean, that became a huge issue kind of in the middle of the session.

That was not part of the governor's plans.

So one of the things that did happen was to kind of, you know, work with the House and compromise with them more and more money that had been in some of those projects ended up going towards that retirement system.

So otherwise, though, I mean, I think broadly you could say there's pretty good.

Alignment, but towards in I mean, there was a big surprise.

There was a $100 million that was cut from the Department of Health.

What was that?

I mean, nobody seemed to be expecting it.

It's kind of hard to figure out because it happened in such the last moments and it was such a surprise.

So it's hard to figure out where that is intended to go.

I mean, there were a lot of changes that were made in the in the budget.

So we don't know where.

But that was a surprise.

I think there was some discussion about it earlier in the session thinking that there were going to be some savings in the Medicaid program because enrollment is going to drop because of some federal changes and they could take some money from that.

But that kind of came off the table.

But then apparently it got right back on the table.

So I think we going to have to see how that plays out.

Of course, I mean, there was some irritation after that budget was finalized, that final vote, because some lawmakers were saying, we don't know where any of this money is going.

And I heard that there were some people that were worried about where we're going to put this money, how we're going to see it show up, how this is going to impact Louisiana.

Is that normal to have that type of finalization at the last 10 minutes or so of session?

It's not normal, but we have seen it before and it does happen sometimes.

I mean, you know, they were in some pretty intense negotiations for several days.

I mean, honestly, it kind of looked like they were on a fairly smooth glide path to getting this fixed.

But apparently behind the scenes, there was a lot of tension that kind of came to the fore at the very end.

They pushed the bills out, you know, with just, you know, 30 minutes or so left in the session.

The votes came at the very final minutes.

But people didn't know there were some significant changes that we do know about.

What I think troubled a lot of those lawmakers is they had projects in their districts or things that were important to them that may not be on our top radar screen.

They didn't know whether those were in there or not, and maybe they still don't.

Oh, okay.

So that's where a lot of the frustration is really coming from.

Right.

So, of course, this was a fiscal session.

That was the entire point.

But a lot of other bills made it onto the floor.

Can you talk about what some of the most notable ones were?

Well, you know, I think this was always going to be about two things.

The budget piece and then what some people describe as some of the culture war issues.

I mean, they certainly took a lot of attention, took up a lot of time.

I mean, there were three bills dealing with gender that really did get a lot of attention.

The governor has since indicated he's going to veto those, but they did pass overwhelmingly.

There was discussion about libraries and restricting access for kids to certain materials in libraries, those types of things.

They passed as well.

So those were there was some discussion about critical race theory that did not get out, but that was one that did eat up a lot of time in some of the Education committee.

So there was a lot of discussion about that.

And some of those are really, you know, going to the governor's desk.

Right.

And like you said, he did say he was going to veto a lot of the bills discussing gender and LGBTQ issues as well.

And also and I remember at the beginning of session, another bill that he really wanted passed was about the death penalty and finally about abolishing it.

So what happened on that end?

Really?

Basically nothing.

I mean, that is a very difficult issue in this legislature, which feels very strongly about that.

The issue has come up from time to time over the years, and really it never gets any traction.

I don't think it's a surprise that it didn't get traction again this time, especially in an election year for a lot of these folks when they're worried very much about crime and criminal justice issues were also at the forefront to a degree during this session, but it really didn't get very far at all.

And of course, asking for exceptions whenever it came to abortion, that was also something he had requested in the beginning.

Right.

And that didn't go anywhere either.

I think we have a very tough law.

They knew when they passed the laws that we have that they were tough.

And I think a majority of the legislature wants to keep them that way.

So what do you think the overall impact of this session will be?

Well, you know, overall, I think it can be very positive.

I mean, I think we do get stuck a little bit looking about how it ended.

And I and think about that chaos.

But I think if you take a step back, we had a lot of money to invest.

And I think largely we invested it very wisely.

We didn't mention this, but we put a lot of money into higher education this year.

Hopefully those teacher pay raises, even though there some controversy there about them being permanent, really will be permanent and that will be lasting.

But the money to deal with the retirement systems, that has a long term impact and that can be very good.

But these dollars going into these projects, if we didn't have this opportunity right now with bridges, with the coastal issues that we have, water systems, all these things that are really looking for some kind of funding, if we didn't have that, we would be much worse shape than we really are now because we've kind of directed these dollars in that direction.

Of course.

But as always, the cliche.

Only time will tell.

Only time will tell.

We've got a fiscal cliff that may be coming in a couple of years because some taxes are rolling off the books and some other dollars are going away.

There's always going to be issues with money and funding.

So, you know, this year is kind of ironic in a way that we had some contention when we had a lot of money.

But I guess you always fight over the money no matter what.

I think you're right.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

I really appreciate it.

I had to be here.

In the past few years, we've seen several insurance companies collapse under the weight of severe hurricane seasons and severe flooding.

An LSU study found that one in five Louisiana homeowners are without insurance.

I spoke with Jim Donelon, the Louisiana insurance commissioner, about how this will impact future homeowners in Louisiana.

Well, I have not seen the study that documented the percentage, but assuming that to be accurate and I have no reason to question it, it would be for two reasons.

One is the failures that we experienced in the aftermath of Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida over a 13 month period of time in the years 2020 and 2021.

Fortuitously, we were spared any direct hits in 2022, but unfortunately, at the end of the hurricane season, our neighbors in Florida experienced what has now become the worst hurricane season.

From a paid loss point of view.

Finally breaking our record that we set with Hurricane Katrina, some in 2005, some 15 years earlier.

So five companies failed that were domiciled in Florida, three failed that were domiciled here in Louisiana as a result of their hurricane losses for which they had inadequately re insured their risk in not Laura, Delta and Zeta in 2020 and then a final company.

Neither company, though headquartered in Louisiana on Padre Street in New Orleans, was chose to re domesticate for oversight purposes to the District of Columbia, where they ultimately failed as well.

So a combination of the crises in Florida and the hurricanes in Louisiana led to companies failing in many cases and withdrawing or pausing, writing homeowner's business in our state.

Well, not having homeowner's insurance is a really vulnerable place to be in, especially in Louisiana, especially right now, because it's hurricane season.

Absolutely.

Can we expect more people to lose their insurance as time goes on?

I don't think so.

If we're continued to be blessed, as is projected, predicted by the experts at Colorado State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in oh eight, where they are predicting a typical or normal hurricane season, or maybe even slightly lower than normal, If we can depopulate citizens as we did after Katrina, that reduces the cost of their reinsurance and therefore the price of policies for citizens, policyholders, those in the private sector, these new to our market and now stimulated 38 companies took incentive grant money last month totaling $42 million.

Of those eight five of them are new to our market writing homeowner's insurance.

Three are here committed to writing more as the law requires.

And with that, the folks in 61 of our 64 parishes can get coverage from these eight companies today, three of them, three of the parishes, St Tammany, Arlene's and Jefferson, the companies, the three that are already writing in Louisiana are at their capacity for coverage in those parishes.

So they're not writing new business in those three parishes.

The new to our state companies, however, are writing new business in those parishes.

Well, do you think that this in any way would impact the housing market just because, you know, January has homeowners insurance?

No doubt about it, this is a major factor in the ability to develop more housing, to make it more affordable, and to keep the value of that housing market up.

Typically for the typical family in Louisiana, the biggest investment in their portfolio of savings and assets is the equity in their home.

And with increasing flood insurance costs from the federal government, that's going up dramatically increasing homeowner's insurance costs in the aftermath of the two crises we just discussed, those values of those homes are dropping because it's expensive to own a home in in Louisiana these days.

So we've talked about some pretty scary things.

No doubt.

You've mentioned some of the solutions, but I just wanted you to reiterate them.

Sure.

What incentive program is the best way to address the immediate crisis that we're in the midst of as we speak?

The legislature a year ago also in it passed legislation to create copied from Alabama the long term solution to our problem.

As my colleague next door in Mississippi is always saying, we can live on the coast in his state and ours if we build high enough and strong enough and fortified homes, is the answer to the strong enough need for the long term.

And Alabama's done it extremely successful.

We in the current budget for the ongoing session that will finish today have $50 million budgeted to start issuing grants of between $2,000,010 million to folks who will upgrade their roof and maybe other windows and doors and connections to the roof to get to certified standard of protection.

That will enhance our market, making it more attractive, as Alabama has done for insurers to come right business.

Even in coastal Louisiana.

All right.

So we've got some solutions.

We do.

We do.

And I am optimistic that we will get through this in part because of lessons learned 15 years ago with Katrina and Rita, and also in part because of what we've seen done in other states across south.

More elementary school is improving literacy skills with an eye program called a Mirror that one line instructor use the sound of a student's voice to strengthen pronunciation and reading comprehension.

She's helped more than 150 students since being introduced in March.

Take a look.

We are going to read some more in this story.

Read each word carefully.

Lipsey and Emily are elementary school students learning to read and pronounce words in English.

The man tells the dog to go away, but instead of a teacher going over these lessons.

They're using an A.I.

program called a mirror.

How often do you practice?

Like, twice a day.

I think Amir is a reading assistant that listens to children as they read stories aloud.

And so far, she's showing progress with children at seat across South More elementary school.

How exactly does the program work?

I mean, we saw kids using it, pressing buttons and repeating words back to it.

But how does it work?

So basically, there are data reports actually specifically that hone in on the reading scope that was mentioned earlier.

So breaks down vocabulary fluency.

So teachers will actually be able to delve into this data and compare various data points with it.

Like we're really looking forward to look at doubles and look at how our kids did the ELT, our English language proficiency test where, you know, where those comparisons are LEAP tests.

So all these different data points that teachers can actually utilize with their small group instruction to help build that reading comprehension.

Oh, so it's really like a partnership between teachers in the program.

Yes.

Yes.

But a mirror doesn't just record a child's progress for teachers to see.

She analyzes their reading patterns to better assess how to teach them pronunciation, which is come in handy at C to Chris because the program is mainly used for kids learning English.

Amir has patience.

If a student struggles, especially with English learners, it will wait and make sure that the student actually tries to go ahead and sound at the word.

But the moment he actually sees that the student is struggling, it'll go ahead and help the student.

Based on one of its many, many strategies right.

To go ahead and sound out the word and say the word and it remembers, which is also a great component.

So in remembering this, it will compile this into data to where you'll see specifically the words that it's actually creating a list of of the kids where they need help.

Was there a need for a mirror?

Yes.

Our English learners is a subgroup that has needed to be supported for some quite some time now in our state.

And again, with the recognition and support and help of our U.S. Department of Education, we've been able to go ahead and support our English learners by bringing a mirror to go ahead and use real life time and data and tutoring to help our teachers as well.

So to answer your question, yes, it was definitely needed.

The pandemic played a role in declining reading for all students, but English learners were hit hard.

Those were students that we noticed had not seen as much learning progress.

We looked at their language proficiency test and we had saw some growth there, but it didn't translate into some of our state assessments as well.

And so we immediate said, okay, for this school year, for 2020 to 2023, we want to do something intentional.

154 students at sea to class use a mirror now.

In total, she's completed more than 6700 books.

That's more than 20000 minutes of tutoring.

And for second and fourth graders like Emily and Lexie, reading fluency improvement exceeds the national average.

Our kids are talking.

You know, it's amazing.

You know, they're actually participating and saying things and actively wanting to go ahead and be a part of the rest of their class.

So I'm very grateful for the work that we're doing with the Mirror.

A mirror is currently being used in all our parish schools, and she's showing the most promise with ESL students.

In 2006, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Scott Creighton saw a slew of minors charged with felony level crimes.

The experience changed his perspective on troubled youth and the way the state educates them about the law.

As a result, he created crime consequences and the Power of Choice, a presentation that focuses on the basics of criminal justice.

This is part two of Libby's interview special with the Louisiana Supreme Court.

So you created a presentation and it's called Crime Consequences and the Power of Choice.

How did this come about?

Well, it actually started back in 2006.

I was on the trial court bench between 1991 and 2014 in Shreveport, CalPERS and there was one day in particular where I had a large number of young people in the courtroom charged with drug offenses, charged with violent crimes like armed robbery and carjacking and other types of crimes.

And I noted that their mothers were with them.

Sometimes their mothers and fathers were with them, and they had sort of a confused look.

But they were charged with high level crimes.

And in examining some of those cases, the evidence was overwhelming.

And so therefore, they were looking at, if convicted, minimum mandatory terms in the penitentiary.

Some of these young people were 15, 16, 17, and they are trouble as adults.

If the D.A.

chooses to prosecute them as adults for high level crimes.

So they were facing, in one case, an armed robbery case, armed robbery with the use of a gun.

This young man was facing a minimum mandatory term of 15 years and he was age 15.

And there's nothing I can do about it.

If if a jury says he's guilty other than sentence him according to the law.

And in the sadness of that seemed to grip me and seemed a bit overwhelming.

And at the time, my deputy clerk of court said, Judge, they just don't know.

And by that, she meant they don't know the day.

The young the young persons don't know the consequences of what they're doing.

And my immediate answer to that was mine is to tell them and I'm kind of looking around and I realize that person is me and others and judges and lawyers are particularly suited to to educate students and high school kids in particular about the perils of breaking the law.

They need to know.

And in fact, the the criminal code instructs us that ignorance of the law is not a defense to any crime.

What's the reception been like to your presentation?

Oh, it's been overwhelming.

Whatever I present at a high school is usually a packed auditorium.

Packed.

I mean, 300 students, 400 students, whatever.

The auditorium will hold.

And many times parents will be there as well.

Teachers are there.

You know, they enjoy it.

I think they maybe be for two reasons.

Number one, they know it's important.

Number two, they get a little break from their you know, from their hour of instruction, which is good for them.

But they they primarily they they enjoy it because they know it's important and they know that students need it.

I mean, even vaping is a problem at school.

Bullying is a problem at school.

And they want me to cover that as as well.

So what do you think the long term impact of your presentation will be?

Well, I think it I think the long term impact is is sort of multi, multi faceted.

Keep in mind that every year we have a new group of high school students.

Every every year we have a new group of ninth graders.

They don't know anything about the nuances of the law.

They don't know anything about civics.

And and so therefore, they need to learn.

I think the the long term impact is, is we want we want judges and lawyers and teachers to present this information statewide.

And we also want this program to take off nationally, because I don't know of any of any lose any Supreme Court, any state Supreme court in this country initiating this program.

If they are, I commend them to that for their work with or not, I think they should do it.

Judges and lawyers are especially well trained to teach this because they know the law.

They've been to law school and they they can address all of these legal issues in the high school assembly program.

And sometimes we have I've done it sometimes twice in a day.

Same school, you know, three or 400 students in the auditorium at one time, another 300 in the in the afternoon.

And and actually in Shreveport, I had a double feature program at the at the local jail.

And we just open that up to two parents and teenagers.

The first the first hour or so was instruction from me by PowerPoint and and the second hour was a tour of the jail.

So that was a real stark awakening.

Awakening for, you know, these 14 year olds, 15 year old, 16 year olds actually being at the parish jail and actually seeing inmates because these kids grow up and they need to know how laws were made and they need to know about the three branches of government and what each branch does.

And that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything anytime, wherever you are with our LP, PBS app, you can catch LP news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm crossing.

See her.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth Ziegler Foundation and the Zeigler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.