Capital visit: Calvin Mills Jr., CEO of Baton Rouge-based CMC Technology, was selected as one of 50 business leaders around the country to attend the White House Business Council and Business Forward briefing taking place Wednesday at the White House, according to a news release. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and President Barack Obama’s international trade agenda will be discussed. Mills is the recipient of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Small Business Achievement Award and the Small Business Administration Minority Small Business Champion for the state of Louisiana.
Seeking help: As cuts loom over the heads of Louisiana’s higher education institutions once again, area colleges are examining their own partnerships to look for ways to grow enrollment and decrease costs for themselves and students, the Daily Comet reports. In separate interviews, Nicholls State University President Bruce Murphy and Fletcher Technical and Community College Chancellor Kristine Strickland say they’re working on expanding their relationships through new agreements and added degrees. Strickland started on Jan. 4, and the when the two met talks quickly to turned to making programs at Fletcher partner with those at Nicholls. Nicholls and Fletcher recently signed an agreement matching their nursing programs and are looking to add another agreement within the next year with the addition of a criminal justice degree at Nicholls. Though she didn’t offer specifics, Strickland says other, similar agreements are in the works.
Getting older: In a packed state House of Representatives conference room, Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Baton Rouge, encountered an unexpected silence from the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana’s Board of Trustees after he presented a plan to reform the state’s pension system, the Manship News Services reports. Ivey, who sits on the House Retirement Committee, presented legislation to curb the increase of debt used to pay for the state employee pension system and to transform the current defined benefit plan, which places all financial risk on the state, into a hybrid system that would split the burden 50/50 with the employer. The proposed legislation, House Bill 65, would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 65 for state employees hired from July 1, 2018, onward. Read the full story.
