BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – The Louisiana Credit Union League hastaken a tally to assess how credit unions fared during the lastlegislative session that ended June 23, and based on itsevaluation, Louisiana credit unions fared well during the session.That's the assessment of LCUL Corporate Legal Services AttorneyGary Robinson. “The League tracked more than 50 bills this session.We were pleased with everything that passed, and the issue ofcredit union taxation was not raised,” he said. State legislatorssupported financial education for students in two separate billspassed during the 2003 regular session of the LouisianaLegislature. One mandates personal finance instruction for highschool students; the other requires credit card issuers to providecertain information to students in tandem with credit cardsolicitations. Act 38 (SB 38) requires that free enterprisecurriculum already being taught to Louisiana high school studentsnow include instruction in personal finance, beginning with the2004-2005 school year. Topics mandated for the course are income,money management, spending, credit, savings and investing. Schoolswill be using the National Endowment for Financial Education's HighSchool Financial Planning Programr (NEFE) curriculum, donated bythe state's credit unions. In addition, in response to the wave ofgiveaways on college campuses in conjunction with credit cardsolicitations, Act 1010 (HB 107) prohibits credit card issuers fromoffering “gratuities or anything of value” to students to get themto “read, review or consider” applying for a credit card, withoutalso providing them with a credit card education brochure. Twobills introduced by the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions,Act 362 (HB 191) and Act 363, better align state regulations withNCUA regulations and make it easier for credit unions to expandfields of membership with bylaw amendments. Other bills passed thataffect credit unions include: Act 639 (HB 517) which adds “averagedaily account balance” to the list of financial institutionreporting requirements for non-custodial parents who owe past duechild support, otherwise known as “deadbeat parent” accounts.Currently, Louisiana financial institutions report only the name,address and social security number for such parents; and Act 934(HB 973), which provides protection for victims of identity theft,including victim filing of police reports, creditors providing thevictim with all information obtained through an identity theft;granting immunity to creditors acting in good faith when providinginformation; placing security alerts on victims' credit reports,credit reporting agencies maintaining a toll-free telephone numberto accept security alerts from consumers, and liability forentities that violate the provisions of this [email protected]