Legislators will take a look at ways to help Hurricane Laura-ravaged southwest Louisiana recover in the ongoing special session.
Lake Charles Senator Ronnie Johns said his first priority is securing funding for the region’s school districts. He said at the moment many students are scattered across the state leading to misleading school attendance rolls.
“We want to make sure that the MFP formula does not penalize those displaced students and their school systems from getting their full funding,” said Johns.
Johns said there’s also a series of laws on the books that state if a business is non-operational for a certain amount of time they lose their license.
“We are trying to give them an extension of those statutes to be able to rebuild, to not lose their license, and to be able to come back,” said Johns.
John said they’re also considering tax credits, or tax and licensing suspensions to help out struggling businesses who’ve lost everything. He said the devastation has been heartbreaking.
“Hurricane Rita was about a four billion dollar cost to the insurance industry,” said Johns. “The initial assessments right now for Hurricane Laura are somewhere between 12 and 14 billion dollars.”
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