Foster worked to re-organize the state's community college system by creating the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, and expanded the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS), a brainchild of the New Orleans oilman Patrick F. Taylor, so that students were eligible based on merit, rather than income. In the 2002 legislative session, Foster credited freshman Representative Tom Capella of Jefferson Parish, now the parish assessor, with saving TOPS from the budget axe. Foster instituted mandatory standardized testing for grade advancement in a move described by his administration as an effort to make public schools more accountable. He made increasing teacher salaries a major priority, at one point promising to stop cashing his paychecks until teachers' salaries reached the Southern average. Andy Kopplin served as Governor Foster's chief of staff.