In case you missed it, lawmakers in Louisiana’s GOP-controlled Senate said Tuesday that they regret their hasty passage of the state’s $45 billion budget nearly two weeks ago—namely their decision to reduce a proposed funding increase for the state Department of Health by $100 million—and called on Gov. John Bel Edwards to clean up the mess.
Edwards recently said that he would “use every means” at his disposal to either partly or completely restore the proposed funding.
The Senate Finance Committee and Health & Welfare Committee met Tuesday to publicly discuss the impact of a plethora of budget amendments, some of which senators say were made by House members at the last minute.
The budget was passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature in the final 30 minutes of the session, with little to no explanation of the changes, minimal debate, and, in some cases, a lack of testimony over how the amendments could affect services.
Among those regretting their approval of the budget was Senate Finance Committee Chair Bodi White, a longtime Republican lawmaker who sat on the six-person committee that crafted the fiscal amendments behind closed doors. The committee included both House and Senate members.
White says he signed the amendment report, without reading the document, in the waning minutes of the session in order to avoid a special session. Now, having taken time to digest the changes, he says he “prays” the governor will veto the budget.
“We did some things that should never have been done, especially when we have surpluses … and I take part in responsibility,” White told colleagues Tuesday. “I didn’t have much time and I had no idea what was in it. I trusted my legislators from the other [chamber] and obviously should not have.”
The tense discussion marked the latest communication failure between the two legislative chambers over fiscal matters this session, with legislators at odds over how the state should allocate more than $2 billion in extra revenue.
House Speaker Clay Schexnayder said in order to pay down more of the state’s debt, lawmakers looked at departments that had fiscal “over-asks” in their budgets. As a result, they came up with rejecting a portion of the Department of Health budget increase sought by Edwards.
Schexnayder says that there is “plenty of blame to go around for the budget being delayed,” and he noted that the department was still going to get $144.6 million more than it did last year.
While some Republicans argue that the deduction is a drop in the bucket compared to the health department’s $20 billion budget, officials warn that it could have significant consequences—most notably, a loss of up to $700 million in matching federal funds, something many lawmakers say they weren’t aware of while voting on the budget. They also say the money was needed to cover medical inflation and an increase in service costs.
Services that could be reduced as a result of the deduction include behavioral health services, an uncompensated care reimbursement fund, the agency’s Nursing Home Rebase program, mobile cancer screenings, state-funded health care for the elderly and hospital security, Department of Health Secretary Stephen Russo told lawmakers Tuesday.
“These are not games, people in the state will die,” Democratic Sen. Gerald Boudreaux says of the possible cuts.
A couple of lawmakers on Tuesday suggested the possibility of convening a special session to address the budget issues. An agreement would be even more difficult to reach during a special session, however, as it would require a three-fourths majority vote in the House and the Senate.
