The heads of LSU and Tulane University and Gov. Bobby Jindal finally reached an agreement Friday on the power-sharing dynamic for a new public-private teaching hospital to replace Charity Hospital in New Orleans.An 11-member nonprofit board will govern the new, $1.2 billion facility, which will be owned by the LSU System. LSU will have four directors, Tulane and Xavier universities will have one director each, four will be independent and one director will rotate between Dillard University and Delgado Community College, according to a Times-Picayune article.The agreement comes after months of negotiations about who should comprise the board. The LSU System disagreed with giving a board position to Tulane because Tulane operates a for-profit hospital in New Orleans that would be in direct competition with the new facility.The new hospital will be funded from three sources. The state will contribute $300 million, and the new institution will finance $400 million through revenue bonds issued by non-profit corporations affiliated with LSU. The remainder of the cost will be covered by Louisiana’s settlement with FEMA for the loss of Charity Hospital to Hurricane Katrina four years ago.The state says it is owed $492 million from FEMA, but the federal government only offered $150 million. Despite that difference, Jindal said the project would proceed without delays, no matter the final amount of the settlement.The new facility, which state officials say could be open by 2013, will be built in Mid-City in New Orleans. This decision comes despite criticism that the Charity Hospital structure could be restored to working order much sooner.At the agreement-signing ceremony Friday, Jindal called the new hospital a milestone in Louisiana’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina.”This may be one of the single biggest steps forward we can be taking in this fourth year [since Katrina] to hasten our city’s recovery, to help bring our people back and give them the services they deserve as they continue their lives here in the great state of Louisiana,” Jindal said.LSU System President John Lombardi focused on the academic benefits of building the new facility.”The thing that’s the most important to all of us in higher education is that we will have the capacity to do first-rate education and research, and that we will have a way for all of us in this community to participate together in building that high-powered academic medical center that will define the enterprise here in New Orleans,” Lombardi said.—-Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]