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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
W e d n e s d ay, d e c e m b e r 10, 2025
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Metro Council approves budget with deep cuts
Louisiana yanks a Medicaid contract
330,000 people pushed to other plans BY ALYSE PFEIL
Staff writer
months, he said, and more than 200 additional unfilled positions will be eliminated to account for the cuts. Edwards began laying off members of his own team days after his Thrive tax rededication initiative failed in November. “This has been grueling, hard, gritty work,” he said. Edwards said residents in all parts of the parish, even other incorporated cities, will feel the impact of these cuts on
Louisiana has halted a contract with United Healthcare to provide Medicaid coverage for roughly 333,000 people in Louisiana, less than a month before next year’s agreement was set to take effect. People on the United Healthcare plan will be redistributed to other plans, the Louisiana Department of Health said. “LDH will begin the transition process of moving your Medicaid members to other contracted Medicaid Managed “The Care Plans for a January 1, 2026 immediate effective date,” impact is the Medicaid Direcchaos and tor Seth Gold confusion. ” wrote to United in a letter dated Dec. SEN. GERALD 2. “We expect BOUDREAUX, United to continD-Lafayette ue to abide by all of the terms of its current contract with LDH through the expiration date. We also expect your full cooperation with transitioning your members to their new Medicaid Managed Care Plans.” Some state leaders said they were concerned the abrupt change could cause confusion or disruptions for the thousands of people who rely on that Medicaid health plan, like requiring them to find new doctors. “The immediate impact is the chaos and confusion,” said Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, a longtime member of the Senate health committee. He also sits on the budget oversight committee
ä See BUDGET, page 8A
ä See MEDICAID, page 9A
STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sid Edwards, right, speaks with Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Jeff LeDuff before Tuesday’s meeting of the Metro Council.
Edwards says ‘this has been grueling, hard, gritty work’ BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER Staff writer
The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council has approved Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ 2026 budget, which makes significant cuts to city-parish departments — including the district attorney, public defender and others — to fill a $15.5 million deficit. Though council members made a few minor amendments, the budget was passed Tuesday night with no cuts to the
Baton Rouge Police Department or the Baton Rouge Fire Department. To spare those agencies, the mayor brought cuts of at least 11% to nearly every other city-parish department. Edwards called the budget approval “bittersweet,” knowing what is coming next. “No one feels good with all the cuts we have to do,” Edwards said. “It’s hard when people are losing jobs or losing services.” Around 200 city-parish workers have been or will be laid off in the next few
Border Patrol sweeps come to BR area BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD Staff writer
Border Patrol agents have started detaining people in the capital region a week after the start of the “Catahoula Crunch” immigration enforcement operation that sent hundreds of federal agents to the New Orleans region. At least two people were detained Tuesday by several federal agents near a food truck in Walker. Agents were also seen detaining at least one person in front of a group of children as they waited for the school bus Tuesday morning at a Denham Springs trailer park, according to eyewitnesses and vid-
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eos of the incidents. The detainments mark the first reported sightings of U.S. Border Patrol agents in the greater Baton Rouge area after the launch of the south Louisiana immigration operation in New Orleans. The immigration sweeps in Louisiana have come after similar raids in Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina, in recent months. No end date has been announced for the large-scale immigration operation in Louisiana, which could also extend more broadly. Planning documents ahead of the operation said federal agents planned to detain 5,000 people stretching from Baton Rouge to Mississippi.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond by the time of publication to a request for the number of people detained in the area on Tuesday. So far, they also have not released a full tally of those detained in New Orleans and have said they’ve made dozens of arrests. Witnesses said they saw agents driving around Denham Springs neighborhoods within the past few days near Bass Pro Shops. At least seven Border Patrol agents detained Candido Cano Castro, 19, and Cristal Cano Castro, 21, around noon Tuesday in
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
A manager of Pannu Mobile Home Park, who did not want to be identified, inspects a passport found inside the car that was driven by two people who were detained by Border Patrol agents outside Sabor A ä See SWEEPS, page 8A La Mexicana in Walker on Tuesday.
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101ST yEAR, NO. 163