Our Results at better louisiana
Achieving our vision through new ideas and approaches
As an organization, we target specific priorities each year.
Recent accomplishments include:
- Combining two existing tax credits into a single credit for apprentices and interns and aligns them with the new work-based learning requirements in the state school accountability system. It is designed to encourage employers to expand work-based learning opportunities for more students and workers, aligning the incentive to match new school accountability criteria for internships and apprenticeships.
- Expanding an existing tax credit for businesses that pay a portion of the costs for employee childcare. Its goal is to increase access to quality early learning experiences for children and address one of the critical workforce issues faced by employers.
- Creation of a task force to study ways to implement education-to-career counseling at Louisiana colleges to help connect students to career and job opportunities in Louisiana early in their studies. This is intended to retain talent in Louisiana after graduation to help address Louisiana’s challenges with outmigration.
- Creation of a task force to study Louisiana’s Incumbent Worker Training Program, evaluate the workforce needs of Louisiana businesses, and consider ways the program could be better utilized to enhance workforce training.
- Supporting the overhaul of the Department of Transportation and Development aimed at transforming its operations, creating more efficiencies, and speeding up the implementation of important road construction and maintenance projects.
- Enhancing infrastructure improvements by adding more than $700 million to the Louisiana Transportation Infrastructure Fund.
- Continuing the reorganization of Louisiana Economic Development and creating the new High Impact Jobs Program.
- Advocating for $150 million investment in the LED Site Investment and Infrastructure Improvement Fund. This fund is closely linked to the new LED strategic plan that Better Louisiana supported last year. Its funding represents the state’s largest ever investment in economic development site development and makes Louisiana significantly more competitive with other states.
- Adding another $122 million to fund other key economic development initiatives including the Rapid Response Fund for creating and retaining Louisiana jobs, a special marketing fund, and a fund to help support major events.
- Reorganizing areas of the Louisiana Workforce Commission and the Department of Children and Family Services to create a “one-door” system where individuals seeking job training will also have easier access to other support services to help ensure they are able to participate in the workforce.
- Creation of a streamlined procurement process to facilitate deferred maintenance projects on college campuses, $43 million for the Higher Education Campus Revitalization Fund for deferred maintenance and other initiatives, and continuation of a bond issuance program for capital projects on community college campuses.
- Creation of a new higher-tier TOPS awards designed to encourage Louisiana’s highest-performing students to continue their education at a Louisiana institution.
- Some progress in passing legal reforms to address the high cost of auto insurance in the state, though some key measures failed and the ultimate impact is uncertain.
- Collaborating in the overhaul of Louisiana’s school accountability system, increasing the attention on core reading and math skills, and changes to high school scoring to focus on the quality of outcomes for college and career.
- Leading efforts with the Administration and agency leaders for a law to restructure Louisiana Economic Development to make it more competitive, establish a business-led oversight board, and greater flexibility.
- Advocating for the creation of a comprehensive strategy, long-range state economic development strategy.
- Crafting a new law to steer workforce solutions to meet the needs of business and economic development, provide flexibility, and aligning multi-agency approach to business workforce solutions, signed into law as Act 330 of 2024.
Let’s Unlock Louisiana’s Potential Together
We will write the next chapter of Louisiana’s story
“We are driving positive change by starting with the state’s data, developing and informing leaders, and then taking action to address economic development and public policy. Change comes when leaders across the state get to work making a difference.”
– Phillip Rozeman, MD, Co-Chair, Better Louisiana
