Roemer expected to be elected next BESE president

Chas Roemer is expected to be elected president of BESE at a special joint meeting Wednesday morning of both that board and the Louisiana Board of Regents, sources tell Daily Report. Roemer is currently in his second four-year term on the 11-member BESE, representing District 6, which includes most of East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, Tangipahoa and Washington parishes. Though Roemer will not comment on the expected outcome of the board election, sources confirm he is the likely successor to Penny Dastugue, who has been on BESE since 2005 and was elected president in October 2010. Roemer, the son of former Gov. Buddy Roemer, tells Daily Report that if he is elected, his top priority will be to find a way around last week’s ruling declaring the state’s new school voucher law unconstitutional. “It’s absolutely necessary,” Roemer says of the voucher program. “To force kids to sit in a failing public school is not right.” Roemer says one way around the ruling, provided it is upheld on appeal, would be to fund scholarships out of the state’s general fund. “The ruling had problems with the way the program is funded, not with the program per se,” he says, “so we have to find a way around it.” —Stephanie Riegel