The 2026 legislative session comes to an end at six this evening, and lawmakers will be in an all-out game of Beat The Clock to get those last-minute bills onto Governor Landry’s desk. While this year’s session will forever be remembered for the congressional map redistricting that lawmakers suddenly became tasked with in the latter part of the session, Barry Erwin, the chief policy officer of Leaders for a Better Louisiana, says it was actually quite productive. He says lawmakers passed several bills aimed at strengthening Louisiana’s workforce.
“There are some that are administration bills that are wide-ranging and far-reaching, that are going to have a real impact in trying to improve what we’re doing in training our workforce; but then legislators came with their own legislation too,” Erwin noted.
Erwin says most bills seeking to make changes to the TOPS program went nowhere this year, but he says this is likely not the last of the discussion.
“Some of them would have made some fairly significant changes in TOPS, but what they ended up doing was passing some resolutions to study it further,” Erwin said.
Erwin says one surprising bill that ultimately became law is one that gives colleges and universities a great deal of flexibility to raise tuition.
“Institutions are going to have the ability to raise tuition up to 10% per year. That is a sweeping change. That is a huge change compared to the way that it used to be, requiring a two-thirds vote of the legislature,” Erwin explained.