Louisiana’s $5.1 billion comprehensive capital construction bill for fiscal year 2015-16 contains funding for roads, museums, nonprofits, community centers, parks and sewer projects throughout the state.
All are vying for but not guaranteed state funding. As The Shreveport Times reports, every year the governor and legislators stuff the bill—House Bill 2—with more projects than the state can possibly finance. This year isn’t any different.
At the end of the legislative session, the capital outlay bill was $245 million more than it was when it originally arrived in the House. It’s currently awaiting the governor’s signature. The budget includes projects that have a statewide or regional impact, or are exclusively local.
Politicians, pundits and watchdogs say Louisiana needs to reform how it funds construction projects through HB 2. Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, offered a proposed change that survived committee but was never debated on the floor.
Talbot proposed that funding for new projects in the bill be equal to or less than the amount of available financing. It was Talbot’s attempt to rein in legislators loading the bill with projects. And it was an attempt to take the “politics” out of HB 2, he says.
The reason: The bill is a tool governors use as leverage to get the votes needed to pass their legislative package. Legislators, on the other hand, gain favor with their constituents when they return home to tout how they successfully got a local project into the state construction bill.
John Kennedy, Louisiana secretary treasurer, says it’s all about trading votes.
“The capital outlay process is completely broken in my opinion,” Kennedy says. “It’s completely political now.”
Outgoing veteran lawmaker Robert Adley, R-Benton, sees the situation a bit differently even though he, too, offered a capital outlay reform bill in 2008. The bill also went nowhere. Adley agrees the state’s construction process needs complete reform, but he says there’s justification in seeking state financing for local municipal projects.
“I have 22 towns in my Senate district and they’re all very small towns and they send their tax money to Baton Rouge,” he says. “Every now and then, they ought to be able to get some of it back.”
Adley says towns in his district depend on state help because they don’t have a large tax base to complete many projects on their own.
