Associated Press - June 26, 2009 6:44 AM ET

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Lawmakers signed off on $798 million in surplus spending plans before wrapping up their work yesterday.

Those plans include 290 million for coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects, 230 million for road and bridge work, 98 million for college construction, 85 million for Superdome upgrades for the New Orleans Saints, 24 million for port projects, 15 million to pay off debt in the agriculture department, 7.5 million for state emergency sheltering and much of the rest spread among lawmakers' favored projects.

Most of the surplus spending is included in the state's construction budget bill, which outlines a nearly $5.4 billion multiyear plan for projects, called the capital outlay bill.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Delinquent taxpayers will have a two-month amnesty period to settle their overdue state tax bills with all the penalties and half the interest costs waived, under a Jindal administration bill backed by both the House and Senate.

The tax amnesty period will fall sometime in the upcoming fiscal year that begins next week, in a two-month time period chosen by the state Department of Revenue, under the proposal by Representative Jane Smith, of Bossier City.

Lawmakers estimated the amnesty period could generate $150 million or more, much of it expected to pay for state debts related to hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - New regulations will be written to govern the mobile dental clinics at Louisiana's public schools, if Governor Bobby Jindal agrees to a bill that received final legislative passage yesterday.

The proposal started as a bid to ban the clinics outright but couldn't gain passage.

The final version of the measure by Representative Kevin Pearson, of Slidell, directs the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry to come up with new regulations for the mobile units. Those regulations must include practice standards, parental consent forms, parental consultation, equipment standards, inspection plans and guidelines for disposing of infectious waste.

The House and Senate health care committees would be able to reject those regulations if they find them insufficient or objectionable.

The mobile clinics have increased in recent years as the state increased reimbursement rates for dental work through the Medicaid program for the poor.

Critics of the clinics say it is unsanitary and unsafe to drill on children's teeth in school gyms and libraries. Others argue the mobile clinics bring care to poor children who otherwise would never see a dentist, and they say the dentists who pushed to ban the clinics want the business for themselves now that the state is paying more for it.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The governor won final passage of his proposal to set up a commission to look at ways to streamline government amid several years of expected budget woes.

The bill by Senator Jack Donahue, of Covington, would establish a commission to prepare a report by the end of the year to recommend ways to consolidate, cut and create better efficiencies in state government operations. It heads to the governor's desk with votes of approval yesterday from both the House and Senate.

The panel would present a report early next year to a joint meeting of House and Senate government affairs committees, which could approve and modify the recommendations. Further administrative or legislative actions would implement them.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The state's legislative session will start earlier, if voters agree to a constitutional change approved by both the House and Senate.

Currently, the regular sessions in even-numbered years begin on the last Monday in March and in odd-numbered years start on the last Monday in April.

The proposal by Senator Neil Riser, of Columbia, would change the opening date in even-numbered years to the second Monday in March and the second Monday in April for odd-numbered years. The proposal goes to voters on the October 2010 ballot and would take effect in 2012 if approved.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - By not voting on it, the Senate killed a House-backed bill intended to strengthen an existing law that allows only a single person or a married couple to adopt a child.

That law triggered a lawsuit from two gay men who won approval to adopt a child in a New York court. The Louisiana Office of Vital Records refused to issue a birth certificate listing the two men's names as parents of the Louisiana-born child.

A federal district judge has ruled in the lawsuit that Louisiana must put the men's names on the boy's birth certificate. The state Attorney General's office is appealing.

It was not clear that the bill by Representative Jonathan Perry, of Abbeville, would have had any effect on the issue.

The House approved the bill by a wide margin, but it died when the session ended without a Senate vote.

In other legislative action:

A measure to allow home-schooled youths to participate in public school sports failed to get through the final hours of the legislative session after the House and Senate couldn't agree on a compromise version of the bill.

A constitutional amendment that would have expanded the state's religious freedom protections didn't escape a legislative compromise committee after lawmakers couldn't agree on language in a final version.

A bid to convert a juvenile prison in East Baton Rouge Parish into a regional treatment center for youth offenders, rather than shutting it down, received backing from the House and Senate. The Legislature last year approved closure of the Jetson facility after years of complaints that it offered too few educational and rehabilitative programs. But lawmakers approved a bill that will turn Jetson into the Capital Area Center for Youth.

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