Governor Jeff Landry signed Senate Bill 494 on Tuesday, which reorganized Louisiana Economic Development. House Commerce Committee Chairman Representative Daryl Deshotel of Marksville says the bill does three things.
Firstly, it restructures LED to run at the pace of businesses instead of government.
“The second thing I think it [the bill] does is that it releases the department from burdensome bureaucracies that we’ve seen in our state for so long,” he says. This includes language in the bill that exempts LED from state procurement (state oversight into its’ contracts), as well as removing the requirement that the governor appoint an Assistant Secretary and Undersecretary for LED.
“And third, which is very important,” Deshotel says, “it [the bill] brings the private sector voice to the table.”
That means the bill, also known as the Positioning Louisiana to Win bill, makes sure every business is fairly represented in state government. The main way is by establishing the Louisiana Economic Development Partnership, a private sector-led board to advise LED.
Landry stressed that the reorganized LED intends to focus on small and existing Louisiana businesses just as much as attracting new businesses to the state.
“And by focusing on you,” he said in a statement directed at small- and Louisiana-based business owners, “and the better we get our legacy industries, as she [LED Secretary Susan B. Bourgeois, who spoke before the governor] said, the more organic additional growth will happen.”
The LED senior leadership team was also announced at the signing.
