BATON ROUGE (WGNO) — As the legislative session begins Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser has his own priorities he is trying to gain support for.

One that is on the top of his list is tourism.

“We’re hoping to see our budget stay intact, you know, before covid we had five record-breaking years in tourism,” said Nungesser.

The Lieutenant Governor says that in 2019, 53 million people visited Louisiana and left behind $1.9 billion in taxes. In comparison, he says that’s over $1,100 per Louisiana family that he didn’t have to pay.

“It was the fourth biggest industry in Louisiana, it slipped to number five,” said Nungesser. “We’re hoping to keep our budget intact for our parks, museums, and tourism so hopefully this year we can get back to recording breaking numbers.”

This legislative session marked the final session for Governor John Bell Edwards. As he gave his last State of the State speech, he stressed the importance to consider several issues such as raising the minimum wage and teacher pay.

“I find it embarrassing and frankly immoral we have not raised our minimum wage. Even more so now because of the impact of inflation,” said Governor Edwards.

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