Just this once: The $895 million shortfall projected for the upcoming budget year shouldn’t come as a total surprise to lawmakers or the Jindal administration, The Associated Press reports. At least 40% of it—about $375 million—is tied to the use of one-time money that propped up parts of the current budget and that is expected to fall away in the new fiscal year that begins July 1, most of it used in the state’s Medicaid program. Another slice of the projected shortfall is caused by tuition increases approved by lawmakers and sought by Gov. Bobby Jindal. To start addressing the budget gap, the AP suggests, Jindal and lawmakers can shave off at least $175 million of the shortfall by refusing to pay for inflationary increases, pay bumps and education funding boosts that they haven’t covered in recent years.
Rocked and rolling: State Democratic Party officials will begin a 10-day, 35-city “Getting Back to Basics Tour” of the state Thursday, The Times-Picayune reports. The tour is designed to connect party officials with state Democrats on the subject of “rebuilding and the party’s future,” party spokesman James Hallinan says. The tour will begin in north Louisiana and end Feb. 4 in Slaughter. Hallinan says times and locations of visits were still being arranged today and should be announced later in the week.
Additional oversight recommended: Louisiana’s Legislative Auditor says the state’s Recovery School District, which takes over failing public schools in Louisiana, needs to improve long-standing financial control problems to safeguard against overpayment of employees and the loss of equipment. The audit says RSD controls have been improving but it was the fifth consecutive year that movable equipment was not sufficiently protected against loss and that overpayments were made to some employees. Employee overpayments totaled more than $8,000, according to the audit. And the audit said the RSD’s inventory disclosed 403 missing items worth more than $553,000, including 346 computers. A response to the audit from John White, who took over as RSD chief last spring and recently was promoted to state superintendent of education, lists numerous steps the agency is taking to correct the problems. It notes that the RSD has recovered about $6,000 of the $8,507 in overpayments cited in the audit. Get the full story from The Associated Press here.
