LouisianaHB 6242025 Regular SessionHouseWALLET

WORKFORCE COMMISSION: Transfers certain family and support programs from the Department of Children and Family Services to the Louisiana Workforce Commission and renames Louisiana Workforce Commission to Louisiana Works (EN INCREASE GF EX See Note)

Sponsored By: Stephanie H. Berault (Republican)

Signed by Governor

Health and WelfareHouse and Governmental Affairs

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

26 provisions identified: 13 benefits, 8 costs, 5 mixed.

Extra SNAP months for eligible adults

The law creates a SNAP training program offering six-month benefit extensions at eligibility reviews. It initially serves one parish with more than 100,000 but fewer than 150,000 people, based on the latest census. The parish must contain a public four-year university’s main campus and have no federal time-limit waiver when the program starts. Eligible residents are nonexempt, able-bodied adults without dependents who face SNAP’s three-month limit within three years. They must document qualifying education or workforce readiness. Education options include college enrollment, high-school completion programs, GED preparation, or already holding a diploma or GED. Reviews occur at least every six months; the health department must obtain required federal approvals and notify participants before benefits continue.

Abuse survivors get family assistance protections

Unmarried custodial parents under 18 receiving TANF generally must live with their child in an approved adult-supervised home. A caseworker may approve another temporary home without stopping benefits after finding abuse by an adult in the teen's primary relationship and greater safety elsewhere. The caseworker must check at least monthly and help find another approved home. Separately, the secretary may temporarily excuse a woman in a two-parent TANF family from work rules. She must show domestic violence forced her into a shelter or another protective setting and prevented steady work or attendance.

Surviving spouses keep final assistance payments

A surviving spouse can keep financial assistance Louisiana Works paid to or for a recipient during the month the recipient died. This applies whether the payment arrived before or after death. The provision states no dollar limit.

Working families keep more earnings uncounted

Louisiana Works ignores up to $900 in gross monthly earnings when calculating TANF benefits during a recipient's first six months of earnings. Recipients must take part in work approved for TANF work participation. This can preserve assistance, but $900 is the earnings exclusion—not an extra monthly payment.

SNAP debts reduce unemployment benefit payments

People filing new unemployment claims must disclose unpaid SNAP overpayments. The unemployment administrator must withhold authorized amounts and send them to the health department or its designated office. A specified deduction requires confirmation of an enforceable debt determination, or deductions may follow an agreement with the individual. Withholding pays down existing debt but leaves less unemployment money for current expenses.

SNAP work waivers face tighter limits

The health department cannot seek, accept, or renew SNAP work-rule waivers unless federal law expressly requires them. It also cannot use the specified state option to grant work-rule exemptions. These limits narrow available waiver and exemption routes for recipients subject to SNAP work rules.

Drug testing adds conditions for assistance

Selected adult TANF participants face drug testing, with federal-law limits, constitutional safeguards, and state-certified laboratories. A first verified positive requires education and rehabilitation to keep benefits; a later positive can lead to suspension. Benefits cannot stop during education or rehabilitation, or before a program is available. The departments pay testing and treatment costs, including inpatient care when needed for successful rehabilitation.

Juvenile custody changes household SNAP benefits

For juveniles sentenced to state custody for at least nine months, the Office of Juvenile Justice reports placement and release information. The health department must adjust the household's SNAP benefits to reflect those changes. Release notice is due at least 45 days ahead. When a changed court order prevents advance notice, reporting is due within 24 hours after receiving it.

Stronger privacy rules for workforce records

Agencies sharing workforce records must assign each service recipient a unique identifier and limit personal-data access to authorized staff. Unless federal law bars their use, Social Security numbers may be used only to track employment and earnings outcomes or detect potential fraud. Agencies must remove Social Security numbers from datasets used for other evaluations. Agencies and contractors must destroy received data within 30 days after its intended purpose is complete.

Louisiana Works handles kinship caregiver subsidies

Louisiana Works administers kinship-care subsidies using TANF block-grant money. Caregivers must have legal custody or guardianship of a minor relative within the fifth degree of kinship. Louisiana Works sets payment amounts and eligibility procedures by rule, including annual eligibility reviews. The law states no new subsidy amount.

Unified applications and planning for job seekers

Louisiana Works must develop a uniform statewide application and enrollment process, as far as legally practical. The process covers workforce training and other department services. The department must also work with workforce councils or local boards on a statewide plan aligned with federal workforce law. That plan addresses service access, shared case management, performance standards, local oversight, and help for displaced workers. These requirements do not create a new payment or change benefit eligibility.

Required funding for child welfare services

Beginning October 1, 2027, Louisiana Works must provide adequate Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding for child protection and welfare. The money goes to the Department of Children and Family Services. The agencies’ secretaries must agree on the amount and transfer schedule. If they cannot agree, either agency may ask the commissioner of administration for a final budget determination.

Louisiana Works coordinates family education programs

Louisiana Works replaces DCFS in helping coordinate family literacy demonstration projects. At least 10 projects must run, with one or two per congressional district and 15–20 adults plus their children per project. Louisiana Works also administers awards, with education officials, for the ten parish school systems showing the largest reported reductions in dropout and teen-pregnancy rates. Awards support further prevention programs and better instruction; no award amounts are stated.

Families get coordinated job and support services

Agencies must integrate job training, employment, rehabilitation, independent living, blind services, and job-related education, along with their public funding. A One Door model uses coordinated service plans, staff cross-training, and flexible funding for services clients qualify for. Common intake, screening, case management, and tracking are required, but information-system implementation depends on legislative funding. Federal elderly-service funds for programs Louisiana Works administers on October 1, 2027, are excluded from funds handled by the elderly-affairs entity.

Job seekers get public workforce forecasts

The state must keep public workforce information updated and easy to use, including training choices, program outcomes, and job-growth projections. Statewide and regional forecasts cover worker supply, job demand, required education, and entry and average wages. Forecasts give special attention to high-skill occupations with strong wages. Reports on top future-growth and demand jobs and needed skills must be online without reproduction charges. The workforce office handles occupational data, analysis, training information, and forecasts.

Louisiana Works takes over family support

The Louisiana Workforce Commission becomes Louisiana Works and takes over TANF family assistance, including employment and training duties. Beginning October 1, 2025, SET for Success, STEP, and the Child Support Enforcement Employment and Training Program transfer with their staff. Agencies must preserve existing funding sources and methods; DCFS must pay monthly invoices within 30 days. Courts may direct family-neglect fines to Louisiana Works in FITAP cases and other cases where it provides services. The law also repeals listed statutes, but the supplied text does not explain those repeals' effects.

SNAP training loses federal approval hurdle

The law removes the specific federal Food and Nutrition Service approval requirement for starting the SNAP workforce training and education program. The secretary retains authority to end it by emergency rule if work participation or educational attainment does not improve satisfactorily. This change does not set an individual payment amount.

Assistance applicants must show immunization evidence

Applicants and recipients of covered assistance programs must present sufficient evidence of immunity or immunization. A parent or guardian may provide the evidence. Proof that an immunization program is underway also qualifies under the health department's schedule.

Assistance recipients must use electronic delivery

The health department and Louisiana Works must contract for electronic authorization and delivery of covered assistance, including SNAP and FITAP. Recipients whose programs use the system must get benefits through it. Exceptions are allowed when needed for effective program operation. This provision does not change benefit amounts.

SNAP households must report known fraud

Adult SNAP household members, SNAP retailers and their staff and operators, and health department employees must report known SNAP fraud or misuse. Reports go to the health department through the Public Assistance Fraud Hot-Line, which operates when funding is available. The existing Fraud Detection Fund balance transfers to the health department on the section's effective date. Fund spending requires legislative approval and cannot exceed the prior calendar year's ending balance. The health department also receives specified fraud-determination and recovery duties.

Employers must keep inspectable work records

Employers must give truthful, specific answers to department requests and keep accurate employment records. Records must list each employee's name, address, occupation, daily and weekly hours, and wages each pay period. Employers must retain them for at least one year after each record date. Louisiana Works may inspect and copy electronic employment files as well as covered paper records.

Louisiana Works faces scheduled agency shutdown

Louisiana Works and statutory entities made part of it are scheduled to begin ending operations on July 1, 2026. Their legal authority ends on July 1, 2027. The supplied text does not explain what happens to individual programs or services.

Louisiana Works must reduce staffing

Effective October 1, 2025, Louisiana Works must reduce staffing by at least 40 employees from its July 1, 2024, count. It must complete the reduction through natural attrition by July 1, 2027. The law does not require layoffs or change household eligibility for services.

Assistance standards face state spending limits

Health officials and Louisiana Works revise FITAP and general-assistance need standards each January 1 using federal poverty guidelines. They use the higher of the southern and national averages, but must certify that updates will not increase their combined state-dollar spending. Both secretaries may adopt income and resource exemptions needed to follow specified federal laws or obtain federal assistance funds. Those policies override conflicting state law, but no specific new exemption or household payment is set.

Disability services move, record fees remain

Beginning October 1, 2025, disability determinations, program staff, and direct federal Social Security funding move to the Louisiana Department of Health. Disability eligibility standards and benefit amounts do not change through this transfer. Copies needed for Social Security disability or SSI claims retain maximum charges of $0.50 per page for the first five pages and $0.25 afterward. The minimum payment is tied to what the health department pays for copies. Louisiana Works supplies durable medical equipment to disability retirees covered by reciprocal retirement agreements who must work at least 20 hours weekly.

Benefit data sharing includes privacy limits

Agencies must arrange benefit-qualification data sharing with Louisiana Works and the health department, while keeping information confidential. Reporting under that agreement must use grouped data without identifying individuals. Participating schools and entities must share limited student details with the health department for summer food benefits. Those details are names, addresses, school site codes, unique identifiers, and birth dates. This school-sharing requirement no longer covers pandemic electronic food benefits.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

Stephanie H. Berault
Republican • House

Cosponsors

Beryl Amedée
Republican • House
Beth Anne Billings
Republican • House
Chad Michael Boyer
Republican • House
Dennis Bamburg Jr.
Republican • House
Emily Chenevert
Republican • House
Jason Brian DeWitt
Republican • House
Jessica Domangue
Republican • House
Josh Carlson
Republican • House
Kathy Edmonston
Republican • House
Kellee Hennessy Dickerson
Republican • House
Kim Carver
Republican • House
Kimberly Landry Coates
Republican • House
Marcus Anthony Bryant
Democratic • House
Michael Charles Echols
Republican • House
Peter F. Egan Sr.
Republican • House
R. Dewith Carrier
Republican • House
Rhonda Gaye Butler
Republican • House
Tony Bacala
Republican • House
Vincent E. Cox III
Republican • House

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 258 • No: 0

House vote • 6/11/2025

Read by title, roll called, yeas 94, nays 0, Senate amendments concurred in.

Yes: 94 • No: 0

Senate vote • 6/9/2025

Rules suspended. Senate floor amendments read and adopted. Read by title, passed by a vote of 38 yeas and 0 nays, and ordered returned to the House. Motion to reconsider tabled.

Yes: 38 • No: 0

House vote • 5/21/2025

Read third time by title, amended, roll called on final passage, yeas 98, nays 0. Finally passed, title adopted, ordered to the Senate.

Yes: 98 • No: 0

House vote • 5/19/2025

Reported with amendments

Yes: 16 • No: 0

House vote • 4/23/2025