Project should be finished by January: The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bluebonnet Branch Library to address the final phase of the Perkins Road widening project. Officials from the DOTD and James Construction will be on hand to take questions. The discussion will cover the reconstruction of the Perkins-Bluebonnet intersection, which is set to begin June 15. The work, which involves realigning the intersection to tie in with the additional lanes on Perkins, should be completed by January.
Get money: The commission that oversees more than 60,000 state employees decided those workers shouldn’t be prohibited from getting their annual “merit raises.” The state Civil Service Commission stalled action on a proposal that would bar the 4% raises for the upcoming 2009-10 budget year as a way to help the state save money. The commission’s action came after hours of often angry testimony from state workers who said the raises rewarded productive workers and were based on annual evaluations. The raises, however, are largely automatic, and lawmakers in the House have pushed to strip them out of next year’s budget, saying the state can’t afford them while cutting services.
