BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The more Louisiana lawmakers talk about the state budget, the more it becomes clear a slew of them had very little idea what they approved in this year’s nearly $30 billion spending plan.
That includes many members of committees that spent hours reviewing and helping construct plans for spending billions of dollars in taxpayer money.
The details and nuance, it seems, were less important when the state was flush with cash.
Now, staring at a $1.3 billion shortfall for next year, lawmakers are getting a crash course in what they can do to pare spending — and what they’ve already done to worsen their problems, including passage of a $380 million tax break for middle- and upper-income taxpayers that kicks in next year and worsened the shortfall.
Some of the rhetoric bandied about by Gov. Bobby Jindal hasn’t helped matters, particularly about overall spending. Jindal and other administration leaders have talked repeatedly of a multibillion dollar decrease in the current 2008-09 budget.
That’s not false, but it also has nothing to do with the actions of the Legislature and governor. The shrinkage is tied to the loss of one-time federal recovery aid after the hurricanes of 2005, a decrease in the budget that lawmakers did not control.
Meanwhile, state spending grew by $1 billion in the current year that began July 1, an increase of 12 percent. That’s an area lawmakers and the administration directly control.
Rep. John Schroder, R-Covington, was on the House Appropriations Committee when it worked on this year’s budget. At a recent budget hearing, he said he didn’t realize state spending had grown.
“So, our state budget grew? Can you explain that?” he asked fiscal analysts who then explained what was in the budget bill Schroder approved.
Two days later, Rep. Tom McVea, R-Jackson, also on the Appropriations Committee, questioned how the state labor department’s work force grew. He didn’t realize this year’s budget authorized new jobs for the agency amid talk about cutting government jobs.
“So, we just got bigger?” he said before analysts explained the new positions were in the budget bill.
Yes, lawmakers and the Jindal administration cut hundreds of vacant positions, but they also added some new positions in favored agencies.
Similar moments have cropped up in four different budget hearings in recent weeks.
It’s not entirely surprising that Louisiana lawmakers don’t know every detail of the 350-page budget bill. But it’s also a bit disheartening that some basic bits of information have passed them by as well. They probably could list the specifics of pet projects they added into the bill though.
The ability for the state to continue coasting along with agencies getting too little budget scrutiny and details being glossed over could be nearing an end, thanks to next year’s budget shortfall.
Fiscal analysts have said it would cost $1.3 billion more than the state has to spend in the 2009-10 budget year to continue running all programs, keep up with projected increases in operating expenses and pay for new obligations such as increased retirement and salary costs.
The state’s income from personal and business taxes is expected to decline, sales taxes are flat and the severance taxes and royalties tied to oil and gas prices are shrinking as prices for those commodities fall. Plus, the individual income tax break approved by the Legislature and the governor earlier this year will take effect in the next budget year.
“It’s going to be very challenging for us to balance our budget,” Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis, the governor’s top budget architect, told lawmakers on the joint House and Senate budget committee.
To address the shortfall, legislators say they want to “scrub the budget,” downsize government and improve efficiencies while trying to stave off devastating cuts to services. They’ll need to get much more into the details and nuance of state spending to be able to do so.
——Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]