Gov. Bobby Jindal announced this year his budget for this fiscal year included no new cuts to higher education. It seemed like a welcome relief at the time for students and faculty already suffering under the pressing weight of existing shortfalls. It seemed the governor had finally woken up to the real problems with which we’ve been faced and was actually planning to do something about it.
That said, many people and institutions — including The Daily Reveille’s editorial board — remained skeptical. Jindal’s budget did not have any legal binding, and there was no guarantee its provisions would pass legislative muster unless he put the full weight of his office behind it. And there wasn’t evidence Jindal was willing to spend the political capital necessary to do that.
Sadly, it appears we were right. The bills on this legislative session’s agenda dealing with higher education funding are lackluster at best, and it appears the governor’s bold, commendable ambition will remain unfulfilled.
Which isn’t really a surprise.
More grim news was announced last week — the state budget is $312 million short, leaving a gaping money hole that must be filled by June. And it appears likely higher education will once again be responsible for cutting funds to balance the books.
Cutting higher education is obviously less than ideal, but the problem runs much deeper than simple fiscal math. Jindal and the legislature are disproportionately cutting higher education and health care because they have to.
The fundamental cause of budget cut woes is arcane, procedural and deeply systemic — which means it is not getting the widespread attention it deserves.
After a myriad of amendments over time, various departments of the state budget have earned “non-discretionary status” for most of their programs — meaning those programs can barely or absolutely not be cut during budgetary crises like the one through which we are currently slogging. Larger and larger portions of the budget have been deemed “non-discretionary” over time, leaving only higher education and health care primarily in the “discretionary” category.
More of the state general fund is non-discretionary at this point than discretionary.
Sound boring, tedious and technical? It is. But it means higher education and health care suffer cuts much larger than any other part of the budget when the money gets tight.
To be exact, 65 percent of any budget cut must come from higher education or health care. It’s basically constitutionally mandated.
So claims by Jindal or any other politicians they are trying to prevent higher education from getting gutted seem suspect, since they are concretely prevented from doing so — unless they make sweeping changes to the system.
Bad news, college students : They aren’t.
The closest anyone’s come recently is Rep. Neil Abramson’s House Bill 820, which would essentially extend budget protections to higher education and health care. With the passage of this bill, the legislature would officially complete the task of protecting virtually the entire state budget — one can only imagine the havoc this would cause during the next budget shortfall.
A second concern with the bill is the feasibility of its passage — as a constitutional amendment, it requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature and a vote of the citizens. That’s a difficult political battle to fight.
This brings us to the reason nobody is seriously addressing the real solution to budget inequality — it will be difficult.
Legislators will have to painstakingly remove or limit the budget protections on other departments to really fix the system and ensure budget cuts are distributed fairly — instead of disproportionately damaging higher education and thus the state’s future. And that requires the same difficult battle Abramson is going to face with his bill.
So the next time you hear politicians saying they fight budget cuts, know that, while they may be proposing stop-gap measures and short-term solutions, they are afraid of the slugfest required to enact real positive change.
Maybe you’ll even get to hear them whine about it.
Matthew Albright is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.
Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]