Legislature begins third special session of 2018 with one more shot at preventing cuts to services

The Louisiana Legislature has begun its third special session of the year — a last-ditch attempt to address the $650 million budget gap the state faces when more than $1 billion in temporary taxes expire at the end of the month.

"We’ve been teetering on the brink of the fiscal cliff for too long, and the clock is winding down," Gov. John Bel Edwards told lawmakers in a brief session-opening address Monday afternoon. "We will start the next fiscal year on July 1 whether or not we fix the cliff."

The Legislature in a special session that ended earlier this month approved a $29 billion budget that includes cuts to higher education, public safety and welfare programs, among others, if more revenue isn't raised in the latest special session.

Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarships that thousands of college students receive each year would be slashed by nearly 30 percent, colleges and universities would take a nearly 20 percent hit and state officials have said Louisiana would become the first state to eliminate the federally-funded food stamps program because the state would not be able to afford operating it.

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