State cabinet agencies have been ordered by the Division of Administration to incorporate in their budget making all their cost-cutting suggestions made to the Streamlining Commission. They make up the bulk of recommendations that have specified savings, totaling almost $300 million in cuts or about one-third of next year’s projected $900 million shortfall. Only about $70 million of the reductions would require changes in laws outside of the budget. The full commission is plowing through recommendations offered by advisory groups in weekly meetings that will grow more frequent as it approaches its Dec. 15 deadline for its final report.
—New Orleans has more famous part-time residents but none are richer than one of its newest: Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who recently bought a place in the French Quarter. Orleans Parish property records show that 1139 Chartres St. was sold for $2 million on July 31 to NOLA Residence LLC, which is registered in Seattle. A New Orleans source with direct knowledge of the transaction confirmed that Allen bought the property. The 56-year-old Allen is listed by Forbes magazine as the 32nd richest person in the world, worth $10.5 billion.
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
