Legislators open a busy week today with a number of proposed taxes and tax break changes being considered by House and Senate committees.

The Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee gets things under way when it is scheduled to hear a bill eliminating the inventory tax levied by local governments on manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

Senate Bill 85 by Sen. Robert Adley, R-Bossier City, also prohibits local taxing authorities from adjusting their tax millages to make up for what is expected to be some $450 million in lost revenues. Adley told The Advocate the Legislature would have to come up with new ways for local governments to raise revenues.

The House Ways and Means Committee has 23 tax and related measures on its Tuesday agenda. They deal with cigarette taxes, corporate income taxes, motion picture, income and solar tax credits, the Enterprise Zone Program, the granting of sales tax exemptions and horizontal drilling exemptions.

Speaker of the House Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, has House Bill 683 up for a Tuesday hearing before the House Health and Welfare Committee. It is designed to help Calcasieu Parish hospitals.

Lake Charles Memorial Hospital took over the operation of the former Moss Regional Medical Center when Gov. Bobby Jindal privatized the charity hospital system. Kleckley’s bill would require the state Department of Health and Hospitals to develop a system for reimbursing three other parish hospitals affected by the change.

All four non-rural acute care hospitals have experienced an increase in the number of indigent patients, but Christus St. Patrick, Lake Area Medical Center and West Calcasieu Cameron hospitals don’t have cooperative endeavor agreements (CEA) with the state.

Kleckley wants DHH to develop a method for reimbursing those hospitals that don’t have a CEA. The plan it develops would have to be approved by the House and Senate Committees on Health and Welfare.

The House Transportation, Highways and Public Works Committee today will hear a measure designed to restrict the amount of Transportation Trust Fund money going to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the Office of State Police.

House Bill 208 by Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, would limit the money to $40 million for fiscal year 2015-16, $25 million for 2016-17 and $10 million for 2017-18 and each fiscal year thereafter

Legislators have complained for years about too much transportation money being used by State Police at a time when the state has a $12 billion highway and bridge backlog.

Also on the agenda is a bill by Rep. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero. His H.B. 645 requires the state Department of Transportation and Development to utilize toll credits generated by a tolled transportation facility solely for highway projects on or in the vicinity of the facility where the toll is collected.

Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, has bills before the House Education Committee Tuesday and Wednesday. H.B. 60 scheduled for Tuesday creates the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Board of Trustees as a single governing board for higher education. It would abolish the existing management boards.

Carmody and others have tuition and fee bills up for an education hearing on Wednesday. They would let individual institutions set both tuition and fees and eliminate the need for legislative approval.

Sen. Gerald Long, R-Winnfield, has S.B. 20 that adds new positions to those educators who can become re-employment-eligible. They are substitute teachers, adult education or literacy instructors and adjunct professors. The measure will be heard today by the Senate Retirement Committee.

Persons who are re-employed have their retirement benefits suspended for a 12-month period. The benefit suspension doesn’t apply after that year unless earnings exceed the limitation of 25 percent of the individual’s benefit during any fiscal year.Present law and the proposed changes apply to teachers who are in a critical shortage field.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, Tuesday has a bill before the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice Committee. H.B. 139 changes aggravated rape to first degree rape, forcible rape to second degree rape and simple rape to third degree rape.

The measure doesn’t change any of the penalties for those three charges.

Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, has S.B. 242 up for a Tuesday hearing by the Senate Judiciary B Committee. It requires each criminal justice agency, including college and university campus police departments, to report certain information no later than Jan. 15 of each year.

The information includes the number of sexually oriented criminal offenses reported, the number of sexually oriented criminal offenses investigated and the number of sexual assault collection kits submitted for analysis.

Each criminal justice agency would report the information to its state association or the legislative auditor. Those organizations would be required to submit that information by March 1 of each year to the chairmen of the Senate Committee on Judiciary B and the House Committee on the Judiciary.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee Tuesday will hear S.B. 68 by Sen. Sherry Smith Buffington, R-Keithville. It extends a prohibition on approving any additional nursing facilities or beds from July 1, 2016, to July 1, 2022.

The current prohibition began July 1, 1996, and remains in effect until July 1, 2016. Approvals are granted by the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

Louisiana Legislature

MSgt Toby M. Valadie