Unlike last year’s state executive budget, this year’s is not contingent on selling prisons and the passage of constitutional amendments, which the House excised in 2011. It again provides for no general pay increases for state workers and no growth in K-12 funding, beyond more money for increased enrollment. Most of the gap between projected revenue and the continuation budget comes from $325 million in spending reductions and $230 million in use of one-time money for recurring expenses, partly from tapping into statutorily dedicated funds. Net savings of $120 million rides on the Legislature’s approving proposed changes in the state employee retirement system, including a 3-percentage-point increase in employee contribution, and an increase in the retirement age from 55 to 67. Medicaid providers’ reimbursement rates will be reduced an average 2%. Private and community hospital association leaders say they are “extremely disappointed” but will work to “educate and remind legislators” about “the critical services these hospitals provide.” The long-discussed sale of an Office of Group Benefits’ health insurance plan will not go forward, but the Preferred Provider Organization will be contracted out to a third-party administrator, resulting in the reduction of 177 jobs, over half of the OGB staff.
—With Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden up for election to a third term this November, former Chief of Police Greg Phares says he is considering challenging him. “If people believe I am qualified to be mayor, I am honored by that and would have to consider it,” he says, adding that as a state civil service employee, he is not ready to pursue the idea further at this time. Phares is chief investigator for the state inspector general. Phares says Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby approached him about running. Grigsby—who formed a PAC that raised money for BESE and legislative candidates last year—says he and Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard oppose the idea of a mayor serving three terms. “I’m not trying to find a candidate,” Grigsby says. “I’m trying to come up with a program to entice a number of candidates to run.” Citing crime as the major problem facing the capital, Grigsby says he will push for a change in the Plan of Government on the fall ballot that would consolidate the Baton Rouge City Police and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, along with the police departments of smaller communities in the parish, for a total of seven agencies that would be merged under the elected sheriff. Current city policemen would stay under Civil Service, but not new hires, under Grigsby’s plan.
They said it: “He asked me out. I said no.” —New Orleans Councilwoman Stacy Head, jokingly, after outbursts toward her from candidate Andrew Gressett during a candidates forum for the at-large seat, in The Times-Picayune
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
