Provides that any Louisiana school board-owned vehicles be exempt from paying tolls on any bridges and highways in the state (EG DECREASE GF RV See Note)

House Bill 748 amends Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:157(A) and (B) to extend toll exemptions on state-operated tolled infrastructure to all vehicles owned and operated by Louisiana school boards. Currently, the statute provides free passage to students using ferries and crossing bridges or roads during specified school hours, between 6:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., and between 2:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. The bill retains these existing student exemptions while adding a new category of exempted traffic: any motor vehicle owned by a school board. This exemption applies to all public tolled ferries, roads, and bridges operated or controlled by the state, parish, or municipality, with the exception of the Greater New Orleans Expressway, which remains excluded from the toll waiver.

The practical effect of this legislation is that school boards operating their own vehicle fleets will no longer incur toll expenses when those vehicles traverse any tolled infrastructure in Louisiana, except the Greater New Orleans Expressway. This impacts school transportation operations, including buses, administrative vehicles, and other school board-owned equipment, by eliminating toll costs regardless of the time of day or whether students are aboard. The exemption benefits school districts across the state by reducing operational expenses for all school board-owned vehicle traffic, not merely student transportation during the existing designated school hour windows.

This amendment operates within the existing framework of Louisiana's toll exemption statutes in the Education Code. The bill modifies the same subsections that already provided exemptions for student passage, maintaining consistency with the established regulatory structure and the requirement that rules be adopted according to Subsection C of the same statute. The exemption excludes the Greater New Orleans Expressway, consistent with existing policy that preserves toll collection on that specific facility, which suggests legislative recognition of different toll management arrangements or revenue obligations for that particular infrastructure.