April 1, 2008

State Sen. Cheryl Gray and State Rep. Karen Peterson will hold a news conference THURSDAY, APRIL 3^RD at NOON on the STATE CAPITOL STEPS in BATON ROUGE. The legislators will discuss measures under consideration at the Regular Session designed to address the growing problem of deteriorating, unsafe, outdated and overcrowded public school facilities across Louisiana.

Senate Bill 632 by Sen. Gray establishes the Louisiana Statewide Education Facilities Authority. The authority, composed of school building experts, elected officials and education administrators, will oversee school system infrastructure needs, helping to ensure equitable distribution of state dollars for such needs, providing technical expertise to maximize the use of available funds and helping leverage available local school infrastructure dollars.

House Bill 962 by Rep. Peterson provides the funding mechanism for the Louisiana Statewide Education Facilities Authority. Beginning Dec. 31, 2008 up to $20 million from state corporate income tax collections, the first $20 million of state sales tax collections and $20 million from riverboat gaming franchise fees will be deposited in the Louisiana Statewide Educational Facilities Fund each fiscal year.

Louisiana does not currently directly provide state funding for local school infrastructure needs, although forty-one other states do provide such funding. Louisiana is ranked fourth from the bottom of the list of financial support for public school facilities needs.