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Louisiana

Lousiana also put education reform and work-force development in the spotlight during its 1999 legislative session. In the education arena, legislation was passed to increase funding for the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP), which will provide an equitable level of funding to all state school districts, to $76.6 million. As part of this initiative, $10.3 million is being provided for high stakes testing, remediation, summer school and leadership training to help implement the school accountability program, and $14.4 million was allocated for classroom technology.

One of Louisiana's greatest draws is the university system and its graduates. Pictured above is Louisiana State University, which is located in Baton Rouge.

Gov. Mike Foster Jr. also signed into law last July an increase of $45 million to fully fund the TOPS program through the year 2000. TOPS is a scholarship program available to all high school students in Louisiana that reach certain educational objectives.

Work-force training also got a boost during the state's 1999 legislative session. Louisiana increased funding for the incumbent worker training program from $6 million to $50 million, giving Louisiana the second-largest incumbent worker training program in the country and the largest fund per worker. Upgrade training will now be available to more than 40,000 Louisiana workers per year.

"A company that would qualify for that program would be one that has been in Louisiana for three years or more," says Randy Rogers, director of national marketing with the Louisiana Dept. of Economic Development. "This is a good program to help address technology changes, and it can also provide upgrades to lower level employees who could fill higher level jobs and open up more lower skilled jobs. The program also marries nicely with a program that the Louisiana Dept. of Economic Development has for companies that are new to the state or who have been here less than three years."

Like most Southeastern states, Louisiana's Universities are playing a large role in developing a work force for the new and expanding companies growing throughout the state. The University of New Orleans (UNO) has acted as one of the biggest draws for high-tech development in the state. In recent years, the university has worked with Litton Avondale in developing its ship design facility. Today Litton employs some 6,000 workers and has an annual impact of $700 million on the local economy.

In other Louisiana cities, the ability to find labor for companies has been the biggest draw. In Baton Rouge, for example, "West Teleservices came in and ramped up to the 1,600 workers that we told them they could find," says Dave Bowman, vice president of economic development with the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce. "And now they're adding more; they're making money and see that they have long-range potential of doing very well here."

Other labor-intensive operations have located to the Baton Rouge market as well. Convergys Corp. is opening a 1,000-job call center in a redeveloped mall, and Exterior Credit Recovery is opening an 800-job call center in Baton Rouge as well.