Where the Rubber Meets the Road
The roadmap is in hand. It’s time to take the wheel.
The LA23 Strategic Plan:
The roadmap is in hand. It’s time to take the wheel.
The roadmap is in hand. It’s time to take the wheel.
Louisiana is falling behind, rapidly, while our neighboring southern states are speeding past us to prosperity. If we don’t get in gear now, we’ll miss this key window of opportunity to be the Louisiana future generations will want to call home. A Louisiana where economic opportunity is within reach of every citizen, because we’ve finally left the status quo in the dust.
And we can do this by the end of the decade.
We need you to take the wheel and help to steer us toward that destination, starting now.
LABI's LA23 Strategic Plan is your roadmap, and LA Driven is your journey as we steer the state toward success.
Nine months of surveying employers, experts and stakeholders, coupled with consultant research and analysis yielded a clear picture in 2023 of what it means for Louisiana to be that economic leader. To reach that destination and improve Louisiana’s competitiveness to allow our economy to truly flourish, leaders must clear the most pressing roadblocks by following the LA23 plan through the work of LA Driven.
If we do so, here’s what Louisiana can achieve:
Enhance efforts to find and develop talent by expanding work-ready skills, providing more training for in-demand occupations, and increasing the number of Louisianans in the labor force.
Enhance efforts to find and develop top talent
Improve work-ready skills
Train for in-demand occupations
Expand the labor force
Early Childhood Education
K-12 Education
Higher Education
Established in 2016 to improve the supply of credentialed workers in key sectors in the state’s economy, this grant program provides a pay-for-performance model for funding noncredit workforce training.
This program, run by Indiana’s Department of Corrections, was launched in 2012 and has twice won national workforce awards. The HIRE model prepares felony inmates to enter the workplace, works with businesses to determine the skills and abilities that will make an employee successful in their organization, helps pair inmates with job opportunities, and coordinates with support organizations onclothing, housing, and transportation needs. A HIRE mentor works with each participant for one year after an initial job placement.
Kentucky established the Tech Ready Apprentices for Careers in Kentucky (TRACK) youth apprenticeship program after finding that there were 65,400 high school students in the state with a CTE concentration, but only 4,100 of those had a job. The TRACK program has nine career pathways, provides paid job opportunities, and after high school the student transitions directly into an employer’s Registered Apprenticeship program.
Improve tax policies and the business climate, and position Louisiana in the top tier of states on national rankings.
Improve Tax Policy
Improve Business Climate
Every state agency in Arizona is required to review all its rules every five years, to target any that should be repealed or changed. This statute helps Arizona maintain one of the least-complex regulatory codes in the country. Arizona also created an online portal enabling people who live and work under its regulations to make recommendations, and it has exceeded its target to reduce red tape. Over a two-year period, the state removed 1,100 regulations, saving businesses an estimated $79 million. Arizona also claims status as the first state to recognize out-of-state occupational licenses, making it easier for people to move into the state and begin working quickly.
On the legal front, Florida HB 837 in 2023 was hailed as a historic reform package to end Florida’s reputation as a “Judicial Hellhole.” The Florida Chamber aims to transform the state’s legal climate from the bottom five in America to top 12 by 2030. This legislation reduced the statute of limitations for negligence suits, increased transparency to juries, and instituted a comparative fault standard in injury claims.
Improve economic development outcomes through greater alignment, enhanced tools, and more support for innovation and entrepreneurship.
An outstanding model for tech transfer from research universities is the University of Utah, recently rated by the Milken Institute as the nation’s best university for tech transfer and commercialization.
Utah was also ranked second in the nation for “innovation impact productivity” in a 2020 report by the George W. Bush Institute. The school’s PIVOT Center assists with the commercialization process and evaluates projects to minimize risk.
More than 20 years ago, Ohio Third Frontier was started to provide early-stage investment capital to support technology innovation throughout the state.
Improve safety and resilience by reducing crime while improving health and wellness.
Improve safety
Improve health & wellness
This 2010 legislation package changed sentencing standards to prioritize prison space for repeat offenders and those convicted of the most serious crimes. It increased penalties for some violent crimes while allowing probation, parole, and good conduct credits for non-trafficking drug offenses. Senate Bill 1154 also strengthened probation and parole supervision and improved the decision-making process for releasing inmates.
Research in Arizona showed that individuals who violated conditions of their probation accounted for one-third of all prison admissions. Arizona implemented reforms to ensure that judges have better risk and needs assessment reports; to train stakeholders on the use of evidence-based practices; and to focus time and resources on people most likely to reoffend.