House Notes

Louisiana House of Representatives

2016 Regular Legislative Session
Communications Office
Week Ten, May 20, 2016
Upon adjournment of the 41st day of
the 2016 Regular Legislative Session, 1,294
House bills and 732 Senate bills had been
introduced.
The House has passed 787 House bills.
Two hundred sixty-one bills have been
sent to the governor, and he has signed 89.
A brief description of some of the bills
that have generated public interest this week
follows.
APPROPRIATIONS
*
House Concurrent Resolution 3,
pending House final passage, establishes the
expenditure limit for FY 2016-17 from
$14,188,108,716 to $12,688,108,716; a
reduction of 10.6% or $1.5 billion.
*
House Bill 257, pending House final
passage, provides an additional exception to
the limitations on deposits to the Budget
Stabilization Fund, namely, revenue
collections in excess of the expenditure limit.
*
House Bill 298, pending House final
passage, establishes the Louisiana fiscal
transparency website named "Louisiana
Checkbook" within the Office of the State
Treasurer as a source of information for state
expenditures.
*
House Bill 696, which passed 86-4, is
the statutory companion legislation to

proposed constitutional amendment House

Bill 603, which establishes the Revenue
Stabilization Trust Fund.
The intent of the legislation is to
provide that all existing dedications of mineral
revenue, statutory and constitutional, be
satisfied before allocating mineral revenue to
the new Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund, in
addition to providing priority allocations of
mineral revenue to the Unfunded Accrued
Liabilities of the retirement systems of
teachers and state employees.
The balance would be deposited to the
Fund. A maximum of 10% of the Fund
balance may be appropriated in any year in
which the balance of the Fund exceeds $5
billion at the beginning of the year. These
appropriations are limited to comprehensive
state capital budget projects and transportation
infrastructure. The minimum fund balance or
the allowable percentage may be changed by
a three-quarter vote of the Legislature, as can
appropriations from the Fund at any time for
any purpose.
*
House Bill 1121, pending House final
passage, establishes notification and reporting
requirements relative to retail sales and
requires the online retail dealer with gross
receipts greater than $50,000 to send to the
purchaser at the end of the year the purchase

amounts for the purpose of paying the

Louisiana sales tax on the individual's income
tax return.
COMMERCE
*
House Concurrent Resolution 37,
pending Senate floor action, provides for the
promotion of trade between Louisiana and
Cuba.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
*
Senate Bill 16, which passed the
House 87-0, adds a new category of death
benefits to survivors of law enforcement
officers who are killed in line of duty as a
result of an intentional violent act.
*
Senate Bill 24, reported favorably by
House Criminal Justice, provides for parole
eligibility under certain conditions for an
incarcerated person having served fifteen
years in custody.
*
Senate Bill 70, which has completed
the legislative process, prohibits sex offenders
from soliciting business door to door.
*
Senate Bill 90, which has completed
the legislative process, expands the crime of
human trafficking to provide that it shall also
be unlawful for any person to knowingly
recruit, harbor, transport, provide, solicit, sell,
purchase, receive, isolate, entice, obtain, or
maintain the use of a person under the age of
21years for the purpose of engaging in
commercial sexual activity regardless of
whether the person was recruited, harbored,
transported, provided, solicited, sold,
purchased, received, isolated, enticed,
obtained, or maintained through fraud, force,
or coercion.
*
Senate Bill 326, which passed
unanimously in the House, requires the
Department of Children and Family Services
to submit a report annually to the Legislature
that provides certain child-specific

information regarding reports of child abuse

or neglect reported to the department.
SB326 is named the Alfred C.
Williams Child Protection Act in honor of
former state Rep. Alfred Williams who served
in the Legislature for House District 61 until
his death in August 2015.
EDUCATION
*
House Bill 165, which passed the
House 66-19, provides to sick leave for
teachers, school bus drivers and other public
school employees who are disabled while
assisting students to prevent danger or injury.
*
House Bill 1035, pending House final
passage, requires students in grades four
through six to daily recite the following
passage:
"We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed."
*
House Bill 1159, notice given subject
to call - House final passage, creates the
Commission on Safe Supportive Discipline to
study and implement best practices for
addressing student behavior.
HB1159 additionally provides for
membership and annual reports to the House
and Senate Committees on Education.
*
House Bill 1160, notice given subject
to call - House final passage, provides for
procedures relative to corporations that
support the Louisiana Community and
Technical College System, including soliciting
and evaluating contractor proposals, and
providing for public records, monitoring and
status reports on corporate capital projects.
*
Senate Bill 317, reported from the

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Legislative Bureau, creates the Advisory

Council on Student Behavior and Discipline
to provide advice and guidance to the State
Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education and the state Department of
Education and provides for the use of
seclusion and physical restraint to address the
discipline of students with exceptionalities in
schools systems that have complied with the
prescribed reporting requirements.
HEALTH AND WELFARE
*
House Concurrent Resolution 93,
pending Senate Health and Welfare, requests
a study of a prospective program to limit uses
of SNAP benefits by Medicaid enrollees with
certain health conditions.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 94,
pending Senate Health and Welfare, extends
the Task Force on Youth Aging Out of Foster
Care.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 107,
pending Senate Health and Welfare,
authorizes and directs the Department of
Children and Family Services to convene a
consortium of emergency care facilities
designated in the Safe Haven Law and to
create and maintain a registry of such
facilities.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 110,
pending House concurrence, requests the
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the
Department of Natural Resources to study
water use from natural and scenic rivers.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 112,
pending House final passage, requests a study
of appropriate mental health and behavioral
health treatment systems in the capital region.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 115,
which passed the Senate, urges and requests
the Office of Conservation to study the effects
of ground water withdrawals from the
Southern Hills Aquifer System.

*
House Bill 792, pending Senate Health
and Welfare, provides for the licensure and
regulation of massage therapists.
*
House Bill 1158, notice given subject
to call - House final passage, increases license
fees assessed by the Department of Health and
Hospitals on healthcare facilities and
providers and establishes additional bed fees
for certain licensed facilities.
*
Senate Bill 107, which passed 85-0,
changes the name of the Department of Health
and Hospitals to the Louisiana Department of
Health.
*
Senate Bill 473, pending House final
passage, establishes the Louisiana Health
Insurance Premium Payment Program within
the Medicaid program to assist with employer
sponsored insurance coverage.
SB473 additionally provides rule
making authority for the Department of Health
and Hospitals and provides for an annual
report by January 15 each year to include the
total number of enrollees, the total premiums
paid and a formula to determine cost benefit
of utilizing this program.
HOUSE AND GOVERNMENTAL
*
House Concurrent Resolution 88,
which has completed the legislative process,
requests parish governing authorities to work
with higher education institutions to establish
on-campus polling places.
*
House Concurrent Resolution 100,
which has completed the legislative process,
requests the Metro Council of East Baton
Rouge Parish to work with LSU to consolidate
polling places on campus to one central oncampus location.
*
Senate Bill 398, reported from the
Legislative Bureau, exempts video or audio
recordings generated by law enforcement
body-worn cameras from the Public Records
Law.

Page -3-

*
House Bill 987, which passed 85-1,
authorizes a qui tam action for persons who
disclose cases of fraud.
This legislation creates the State
Government Integrity Act, which prohibits
false or fraudulent claims for or false or
misleading statements in relation to obtaining
funds, property, use of property, or other
compensation from state government and
authorizes civil actions by the attorney general
or by persons to seek recovery from persons
who violate the provisions of the proposed
law.
JUDICIARY
*
Senate Bill 468, which passed 96-0,
prohibits strip clubs from employing persons
under 21.
MUNICIPAL
*
House Bill 1066, which passed 87-0,
a u t h ori z es pol i ti cal s ubdi vi s i ons ,
governmental entities, or state agencies to
purchase items through an existing public
contract of another political subdivision.
*
House Bill 1089, notice given subject
to call - House final passage, authorizes the
governing authority of East Baton Rouge
Parish to provide for tax increment financing
to fund economic development in the parish.
*
Senate Bill 412, pending Legislative
Bureau, provides for special districts within
certain cities and provides for tax increment
finance authority.

received from payments that are the result of

cost recovery efforts discretionary.
Additionally SB257 provides that the
monies may be used for loans associated with
the operation of underground storage tanks
which could include replacing old tanks in
rural areas or installation of tanks for new fuel
types.
TRANSPORTATION
*
House Bill 1058, which passed 89-0, a
two-thirds vote, creates annual special permits
issued by the Department of Transportation
and Development for the operation of readymix concrete trucks on state-maintained
highways and frontage roads.
*
Senate Bill 91, pending House final
passage, increases penalties for text messaging
and social networking, while driving, to $500
for a first violation and $1,000 for each
subsequent violation.
Minors face a fine of $250 for a first
violation and for each subsequent violation, a
fine of $500 and a 60-day drivers license
suspension.
For a text messaging and social
networking violation in a school zone, the
offender will be fined $500 and for each
subsequent violation, a fine of $1,000
including a 60-day drivers license suspension.

NATURAL RESOURCES
*
Senate Bill 257, reported favorably,
provides that monies deposited into the loan
program known as the Motor Fuels
Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund may be
used for other purposes aside from the closure
of abandoned underground storage tanks.
SB257 makes the use of the money
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