One possibility: To offset steep higher education cuts that could reach as high as $400 million, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration is floating the idea of reshuffling Louisiana’s tax break spending and creating a new tax break for businesses that donate to college campuses. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Joel Robideaux tells The Associated Press the Jindal administration offered the idea in conversations with legislative leaders as one possible solution to the $1.6 billion budget gap for the coming fiscal year. He says the proposal would involve scaling back other tax breaks, possibly the film tax credit, to keep the new higher education tax break from costing the state any additional money.
Baton Rouge bound: Leonard Apcar, a senior New York Times editor, has been named the first Wendell Gray Switzer Jr. Endowed Chair in Media Literacy at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU, the university announced today. The chair is the only one of its kind in the country, devoted to teaching and researching media literacy. Apcar will join the Manship faculty after a 24-year career at The Times that included business, international and Washington editing posts, as well as web editor-in-chief and chief Asia editor. “Len’s variety of experiences, especially his role in shaping The Times’ online presence at a critical point during the media revolution, makes him perfect for this position,” says Manship Dean Jerry Ceppos in a news release. LSU has more details on today’s announcement.
Monitoring the situation: In response to concerns, the Army Corps of Engineers says it will monitor possible sinking over time of 23 miles of levee and floodwall protection it built after Hurricane Katrina to protect St. Bernard Parish, an area southeast of New Orleans that suffered catastrophic flooding in the 2005 storm. As The Associated Press reports, the Army Corps says in a report released Monday that the weak soil beneath the levees and concrete floodwalls it built around St. Bernard could cause the 75-foot-long pilings to bend over time. But the agency stressed that there was no immediate concern and that there might not be any problems in the future. The corps spent about $1 billion to build a much higher and stronger flood protection system around St. Bernard after Katrina.
