In 1985, then-State Senator Foster Campbell urged Governor Edwin Edwards to set aside $500,000 in tax revenue from Louisiana Downs to fund a perpetual endowment for Bossier Parish schools. The Legislature passed Campbell’s bill creating the Bossier Educational Excellence Fund, known as BEEF for short. Campbell later amended the BEEF legislation to add state tax revenue collected from Bossier City casinos. What started as a $500,000 investment has now grown to $50 million in just over 30 years. The fund is designed to allow the school system to use the fund’s yearly interest to pay for classroom enhancements. To date, the Bossier Parish School Board has issued $7 million in BEEF grants to purchase computers for students, art education, after-school tutoring and much more. Campbell later used BEEF as the model for legislation creating a statewide Educational Excellence Fund, using $1 billion of the state’s $4-billion Tobacco Settlement. Interest earnings from BEEF are distributed to public and private schools throughout Louisiana each year for classroom instruction.

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