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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. Bobby Jindal's budget proposal for next year would continue a higher education incentive fund that steers money to high-demand job programs. But the spending would be reduced and tied to a more complicated financing source.
At Jindal's urging, lawmakers set up the Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund to link higher education money to projected workforce demand. They put $40 million toward the effort this year.
Next year, Jindal proposes to spend $30 million on the WISE Fund, with 80 percent coming from hurricane recovery dollars allocated to Louisiana.
Higher education leaders are concerned about the strings that come with those dollars, to meet federal criteria for the spending. A smaller portion of this year's WISE Fund involves recovery money, and those dollars haven't arrived to campuses.
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