The leaders of Louisiana’s medical schools urged state senators Tuesday to stall a budget proposal for next year, until lawmakers consider whether to pass taxes to fill a shortfall looming in July.
G.E. Ghali and Larry Hollier, chancellors of the LSU Health Sciences Centers in Shreveport and New Orleans, said the deep cuts proposed in the House version of the budget for the financial year that begins July 1 would ravage graduate medical education. The full House debates the proposal Thursday.
“We need to stop where we are and hit a reset button. We need to not pass this budget,” said Ghali, the Shreveport chancellor.
The chancellors hope lawmakers hold a special session to consider taxes to replace some taxes that expire with the start of the new budget year, to close the $648 million budget gap.
They said if lawmakers pass the budget with the cuts—even if they plan to later add dollars—it would send a signal to faculty and students that the reductions to graduate medical education and the safety-net hospitals in which students train might actually happen.
