The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • 14

LOUISIANA TcRvnTalk C2 Wednesday, August 1 5, 2007 Hurricane recovery aid boosts state budget to $33.6 billion er the costs of keeping 300 sol Each year, after the Legislature adopts the annual budget and goes home, lawmakers on the joint House and Senate budget committee approve monthly adjustments to spending agreeing to shuffle dollars around among agencies, adding authority to spend federal and private grant dollars and altering spending plans. The adjustments increase the budget total each fiscal year. One of Tuesday's adjustments, however, was significantly larger than most: a $3.7 billion addition of federal recovery money earmarked for rental and About $8.4 billion of the budget was direct federal recovery aid for hurricanes Katrina and Rita a figure that grew to more than $12 billion with the actions of the joint budget committee on Tuesday. The committee also agreed to tap a state emergency response fund for another nearly $1.8 million to help cover the continued costs of keeping Louisiana National Guard troops in New Orleans to patrol the streets after Katrina. Hunt Downer, a major general in the Louisiana National Guard, said the money will cov involved adding $80 million in federal grant spending to the state health department to improve health care services in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina.

The state's operating budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 has been criticized as bloated because it was packed with pay raises, new education spending, new government jobs and pet projects for lawmakers. The 2007-08 budget is plumped up with hurricane recovery aid and increased state taxes fueled by high oil and gas prices and recovery spending. homeowner property repairs through the state's Road Home program. The money wasn't new. It has been included in the Road Home budget plans for months and doesn't address a multibil-lion dollar shortfall still facing the program.

But it wasn't being included in the state's operating budget until the paperwork was worked out with federal officials, said Steve Green, financial manager for the Disaster Recovery Unit in Gov. Kathleen Blanco's Division of Administration. Another adjustment approved by the joint budget committee The Associated Press BATON ROUGE The state's budget grew to more than $33.6 billion Tuesday with a quick set of votes from the Legislature's joint budget committee that boosted the record level of annual operating funding by another $3.8 billion. The votes were procedural, adding spending authority for billions of dollars in federal hurricane recovery money to state agencies, but it further ballooned the bottom line total of a budget that has become the subject of sharp criticism in political campaigns, debate and rhetoric. diers in the city for July, but he said he'll have to return again to ask for more money because the monthly troop costs for New Orleans weren't included in the state budget.

Blanco agreed to continue the presence of National Guard soldiers and dozens of state police troopers in New Orleans to help patrol the city and combat crime that has marred New Orleans' recovery from Katrina. Downer said keeping the National Guard troops in New Orleans costs between $1.7 million and $2 million a month. Sagging pants could cost you 15 days in jail in Mansfield The Associated Press searched state statutes and town of Delcambre as a gui town of Delcambre as a guideline in creating Mansfield's borrowed from a similar law adopted in the south Louisiana MANSFIELD Effective Sept. 15, anyone in this northwest Louisiana town caught wearing sagging pants that expose his or her underwear will be subject to a fine up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail. a 1 x1' Direct Cars Staff needed Ihlhe LeCompte area.

Nights and weekends only. For more information please call 1-800-913-7784. CENTRAL LA Home Health-Tioga Immediate Field RN Position. Sign On Bonus Excellent benefit package. Fax resume to Mary 318-641-1342 HERITAGE MANOR of Alexandria Is looking for a 3-11 LPN Great benefits and excellent pay.

Shift differential and bonus incentive available. Apply within to Deann Butler, DON, at 3343 Masonic Dr, or call 318-445-6508 HIRING Child Care Workers Plneville Park Baptist Church 318 445-7306 Mansfield aldermen Monday voted unanimously and without discussion to enact the law. Mayor Curtis McCoy said he proposed it because he was concerned about the number of individuals who wear pants that expose their underwear. The citizens of Mansfield, he said, should not have to put up with it. City attorney Richard Z.

Johnson Jr. said he re The Associated Press Chalmette resident Karen Vinsanau wipes tears from her eyes Tuesday as she talks with members of a congressional delegation touring areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina. LCC IS hiring direct care staffCNA's to work 40 hours a week, to include weekends. Apply at 5803 Monroe Ball. CORRECTIONAL HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL Physicians Assistant or Nurse Practitioner for the Pine Prairie Correctional Center In Pine Prairie, LA.

The position provides for an excellent benefit package, and salary is negotiable depending on qualifications and experience. Fax resume to 337-237-1532 or email davecarson lcscorrections.com LCS Corrections Services LOAN ASSISTANT Loan Assistant needed for Alexandria Branch Office. Must be strong In clerical and secretarial skills with high school or GED completed. Good computer skills required and banking or loan accounting exp. preferred.

Send resume to Equal Employment Officer, P. O. Box 4008, Ridgeland, MS 39158-6008. Accepting resumes through August 17, 2007. AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER (MFHV) featured home Tour Democrats continue Katrina tour ofN.O.

The Associated Press NEW ORLEANS Greeted by tearful victims of Hurricane Katrina still struggling to rebuild almost two years after the storm, a delegation of congressional Democrats on Tuesday outlined a list of priorities for Gulf Coast recovery. It was the second and final day of a tour led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Whip After visiting Mississippi points on Monday, the group spent Tuesday in the New Orleans area, visiting a storm-battered school on opening day, examining the levee system and hearing from residents in suburban St. Bernard Parish and in the city's Lower 9th Ward, two areas all but wiped out when Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005. "This was not my fault.

I'm 60 years old. I can't go through much more stress," a teary-eyed Valeria Schexnayder told reporters after telling Pelosi about her struggles to replace a Lower s9th Ward house washed away by the storm. Later, in St. Bernard Parish, Karen Vinsanau broke down in tears as she told the delegation of 10 House members that she has struggled to rebuild a gutted house since her husband's death after the storm. "I've just been praying since the storm someone would come to the parish," she said.

Vinsanau and Schexnayder LPN NEEDED Day Shift PRN Every other Saturday, Sunday Monday off 7a-7p. Apply In person Hill Top Nursing and Rehabilitation Center 336 Edgewood Dr. GREAT BENEFITS INSURANCEI 4807 Wmitmr Monroe Street Auto Repair "Complete Auto Care Center" 1 mmmmmmmmmm (Mention this ad for J07o Off) both have had to deal with the federally funded, state-run Road Home program, designed to provide rebuilding or relocation aid to storm victims. It has been lambasted for being agonizingly slow, and it has a projected deficit as high as $5 billion that state officials hope Congress will help replenish. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, the touring House members said they would work with the state to help fund Road Home.

Other priorities listed include improving mental health services that have diminished since the storm, more small business disaster relief and an overhaul of the Stafford Act, the federal law that governs disaster recovery and has been blamed for roadblocks to recovery. "You're not done grieving and neither are we. You're not done cleaning up and neither are we. You're not done building and neither are we," Clyburn said. About a dozen members of the House arrived in New Orleans on Sunday and embarked on the tour Monday.

Aids said Republican members were invited as well but chose not to attend. During a morning trip to a New Orleans school, Pelosi spoke briefly with a group of fifth graders about the Constitution as she thumbed through a social studies book. "We're in your book. We're in Washington. Come see us," she told the students at Mary McLeod Bet-hune Accelerated School.

Higher post-hurricane construction costs, federal aid bureaucracy and continued uncertainty about how many students will eventually return to the city are among the problems outlined by New Orleans schools superintendent Darryl Kilbert as House members toured the school. The pre-K through sixth-grade school was considered neglected even before the storm flooded it with more than four feet of water. Now, with enrollment expected to reach 350, the school still lacks playground equipment. Mansour Office-483-1527 Cell-730-4397 Monday-Friday 8am-5Dm I WW I IV1 318-448-1767 Holes Frye 1608 -A Monroe Street Alexandria, LA 71301 www. thetowntalk.com Last year in Rapides Parish, more than 400 children were abused, abandoned or neglected, (-) Panel agrees to partial bailout for Road Home I co's Louisiana Recovery Authority, said Louisiana hasn't received any commitments from federal officials to fund the remaining shortfall.

The Road Home provides grants of up to $150,000 to homeowners with severe damage from hurricanes Katrina or Rita. More than 183,000 hom eowners applied for Road Home aid before the The Associated Press BATON ROUGE -Nearly $627 million in federal recovery aid would be reshuffled to help plug the shortfall in the post-hurricane rebuilding and buyout Road Home program, under a plan approved Tuesday by the Legislature's joint budget committee. The reworking of federal recovery spending which needs approval from the full Legislature and federal officials would be added to $373 million in state surplus money for a $1 billion bailout pushed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration for the homeowner grant program. The Road Home program is funded with $6.4 billion in federal recovery money, but it faces a shortfall estimated up to $5 billion in what would be needed to aid all eligible ho application period ended last month.

Nearly 41,000 homeowners have received aid so far. Southern Heritage Bank meowners. After adding the $1 billion, Louisiana officials hope Congress will nil in the rest of the gap, though Adam Knapp, deputy director of Blan 5617 Coliseum Alexandria, LA 71303 442-2228 FREE GIFT! When you open a Southern Heritage Bank checking account. "While ippli tart. et AJotri Coltievw bfaodi ooty.

-Whtra Heriln hi iranis fb right to svbsM i ifl qui similar nW. look nil) and tquMom ip. hmMx nfxu tktok 31, 2007. "It's increasingly difficult for the courts and social workers. to make the system work for families and children.

This is why CASA Volunteers are so essential. They provide valuable information and insight about individual children. John D. Rockefeller IV, U.S. Senator Speak Up.

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