EVANS CUTCHMORE

POLICY & WORKFORCE  |  OPINION & ANALYSIS

Two Bills, One Pattern: Louisiana Moves to Dismantle Reentry Infrastructure

As the 2026 Legislative Session advances, two House bills filed the same day target complementary pieces of Louisiana’s reentry workforce infrastructure - with no replacements, no stated rationale, and a committee hearing as early as March 18.

By Kim M. Braud, CEO, The Couvent Collective PBC  |  Evans Cutchmore

Published March 2026  |  New Orleans / Baton Rouge

Two bills moving through the Louisiana Legislature this session would, taken together, dismantle nearly all of Louisiana’s statutory infrastructure for reentry workforce development - and so far, almost no one outside the Capitol seems to know either one exists.

House Bill 296, prefiled February 24 by Representative Alonzo L. Knox of New Orleans, proposes to repeal the Reentry Advisory Council and the Offender Rehabilitation Workforce Development Act in their entirety. Filed the same day by Representative Bryan Fontenot, House Bill 351 repeals the entrepreneurial educational curriculum built into Louisiana’s reentry preparation program - the provision requiring that incarcerated people be taught business concepts, marketing, development, and negotiation skills before release.

Neither bill establishes a replacement. Neither contains transition language. Neither offers a public rationale for what it eliminates. Both have been referred to the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice, where they could be heard as early as March 18.

What the Council Actually Does

The Reentry Advisory Council was established under the Offender Rehabilitation Workforce Development Act to bring coordination to the intersection of systems that affect people returning home from incarceration. Reentry touches corrections, workforce development, housing, behavioral health, education, and community supervision. Without a coordinating body, those systems tend to operate in silos - leaving returning citizens to navigate multiple bureaucracies alone at the moment they are most vulnerable.

The council’s statutory membership reflects that reality. It includes the Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the Executive Director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, the Secretary of the Department of Health, and the President of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, alongside 13 Governor-appointed members representing builders, labor, law enforcement, and organizations serving incarcerated people and their families. The design was intentional: put the right people in the same room and require them to coordinate.

What makes the proposed repeal particularly striking is that the council does not appear to be dormant. According to Louisiana’s LaTrac Boards and Commissions database - the state’s own public record of active boards - the Reentry Advisory Council currently lists 22 authorized members with 22 members serving. The database records four meetings in the previous year and indicates the council anticipates meeting quarterly going forward. This is not a body that exists only on paper.

What HB 296 Actually Does

HB 296 repeals the council and the entire Offender Rehabilitation Workforce Development Act - R.S. 15:1199.1 through 1199.16 - and removes related cross-references across multiple sections of Louisiana law. The bill also removes the council from the list of agencies placed within the Department of Public Safety and Corrections and eliminates the specific program designations tied to the state’s work opportunity tax credit for businesses that hire returning citizens.

What the bill does not do is establish anything in its place. There is no successor body, no agency designated to absorb the council’s coordination function, and no transition plan for the programs the Act currently governs.

A Companion Bill With No Explanation

HB 351 is a single sentence. It repeals R.S. 15:827.1(E) - the subsection of Louisiana’s reentry preparation program that specifically provides entrepreneurial education for eligible offenders. The existing law requires that incarcerated people be taught business concepts, marketing, development, and negotiation skills as part of their preparation for release. HB 351 removes that requirement entirely.

The bill digest offers no rationale. There is no stated cost savings, no referenced program review, no policy finding. For a state that regularly cites recidivism reduction and workforce development as priorities, eliminating the statutory requirement to teach entrepreneurship to returning citizens deserves at minimum a public explanation - and so far none has been provided.

The combination of HB 296 and HB 351 is notable precisely because of the timing. Two separate sponsors, two separate bills, filed on the same day, targeting different but complementary pieces of the same policy infrastructure. Whether that reflects coordination, coincidence, or an administration directive has not been made clear.

Why Knox’s Sponsorship Raises Questions

The authorship of HB 296 is one of the most notable aspects of the legislation. Representative Knox represents District 93 in New Orleans’ historic Tremé neighborhood and brings a background that is closely connected to the population this council serves. Before entering the legislature, he worked as a VA Readjustment Specialist helping unhoused veterans access housing and services, and as Director of Community Engagement for the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation. His academic training includes a degree from Southern University and an MBA from Trinity Washington University.

That background would typically align with support for reentry infrastructure rather than its elimination. In Louisiana legislative politics, however, a bill’s sponsor does not always indicate its origin. Proposals frequently emerge from executive branch agencies or administration priorities and are carried by individual legislators through the process. Whether HB 296 reflects Knox’s own policy judgment, an administration directive, or a statutory review recommendation is a question that has not yet been answered publicly.

What Might Explain the Silence

Several rationales are plausible - and none have been publicly offered.

The Landry administration has made board and commission consolidation a signature priority, framing it as an effort to reduce government redundancy. Under that lens, HB 296 could be administrative housecleaning. The problem is that Louisiana’s own LaTrac database shows the Reentry Advisory Council is not redundant - it is fully seated, actively meeting, and fulfilling a coordination function no other body is currently assigned to perform.

A cost reduction rationale is also possible. Eliminating the council and its programming removes state obligations. But neither bill cites a fiscal note or projected savings. If cost is the driver, the public record does not show it.

There is also a broader national pattern worth noting. A number of conservative-led states have moved in recent years to scale back rehabilitation-focused criminal justice infrastructure, viewing programs like entrepreneurship education for incarcerated people as misaligned with a punishment-centered model. Louisiana’s political shift under Governor Landry is consistent with that posture - though no one in the Capitol has said so explicitly in connection with these bills.

Finally, there is a federal dimension. The Second Chance Act - a federal funding stream that supports reentry programs - carries requirements tied to statutory infrastructure. If the current federal administration is signaling a shift away from those priorities, Louisiana may be positioning itself accordingly. That too is speculation. No one has said it on the record.

The Coordination Question No One Has Answered

The most important issue raised by these two bills is not whether this particular council or curriculum survives. It is what replaces the coordination function they currently perform.

Louisiana releases thousands of individuals from incarceration each year. The research on what works is consistent: employment access, stable housing, and connected services reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for returning citizens, their families, and their communities. Coordination between the agencies responsible for those systems is not optional - it is the mechanism that makes isolated programs into a functioning strategy.

Both bills have been referred to the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee, which is scheduled to meet on March 18. Committee hearings are where these questions should be asked directly - about both bills, together: What replaces the Reentry Advisory Council? Which agency absorbs its coordination function? Why is the entrepreneurial education requirement being eliminated, and what evidence supports that decision? What happens to Second Chance Act eligibility if the statutory infrastructure it is tied to disappears?

Those are not arguments against either bill. They are the questions any lawmaker voting on them should be able to answer. Right now, the public record contains none of those answers.

What is not speculation is the pattern: two bills, filed the same day, eliminating complementary pieces of the same infrastructure, with no stated rationale and no replacement. Legislators on the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee have an opportunity on March 18 to ask the sponsors directly. The public should hear the answers.

Kim M. Braud is CEO of The Couvent Collective PBC, a public benefit corporation. This piece represents her analysis and opinion as a workforce development strategist and policy advocate.

Evans Cutchmore  |  publisher@evanscutchmore.com  |  evanscutchmore.com