Per capita debt in La. rose $11 to $1,318 in 2011

The amount of debt Louisiana carries for each state resident rose again over the last year, the third year of increases, but the state remains well below its debt cap. The latest assessment, presented to the Bond Commission today, shows Louisiana carried a debt load of $1,318 for every man, woman and child in the state, an increase of $11 per person from the previous year. The total “net state tax supported debt” showed outstanding state debts of $6 billion as the books were closed on 2011. The per capita debt has grown under nearly every year of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration, though it hasn’t reached the record set in 2007. Treasurer John Kennedy says the state has a healthy debt load that puts it squarely in the middle of states by comparison. The assessment is more optimistic than in recent years, when Kennedy and commission members worried the state’s budget woes could edge Louisiana ever closer to the constitutional limit on debt. A limit enacted in the early 1990s requires that the state’s annual repayment requirements fall under 6% of the state’s yearly income from taxes, licenses and fees. The state has never exceeded the limit. The per capita debt has been higher only once since the commission started yearly tracking in 1988: when it reached $1,369 per person in 2007 under former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration, pushed up by post-hurricane rebuilding, road construction and other projects.