While state lawmakers may not have made strides in some areas that voters hoped for during the regular Legislative session that ends today, the session itself marks a “major turning point” in state fiscal policy, writes Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana.
“For years the state has been operating off of fantasy budgets that didn’t reflect our true fiscal situation,” Erwin says. “The budget passed during this session is ugly and ultimately unrealistic, but it’s not a fantasy.”
Thirty minutes after the regular session ends at 6 p.m., lawmakers will reconvene for a 19-day special session at the request of Gov. John Bel Edwards to further clean up the state’s fiscal mess after passing a $26 billion budget for the 2016-2017 fiscal year while working around a $600 million shortfall.
The proposed budget contains possible cuts to TOPS, hospitals and public education. Erwin says those cuts are a “shock to the system,” but is probably the “only way to get the system back in any semblance of order.”
“The budget changes that will certainly come in the special session should represent a more manageable spending plan, but the inability to pass a workable budget this session is an exercise we probably had to go through,” Erwin adds.
In a separate statement, the chairman of the Louisiana House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Gene Reynolds, D-Minden, says the legislators did the best with the options given to them in crafting the budget, but adds no one is happy with the outcome.
“This is a bad budget, but it is a real and honest budget, without any of Bobby Jindal’s deceptive practices,” he says, referring to the former governor and criticism he routinely faced from lawmakers about using one-time funds and other practices to fill holes in the budget during his tenure.
“The huge holes in this budget outline the need to raise new revenues in the special session to fully fund TOPS, our safety net hospitals and K-12 education,” Reynolds adds.
