Funding the state’s construction projects is tricky business—and this year will be trickier than usual, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column.
“That’s because Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration is attempting to reform Louisiana’s capital outlay process, the byzantine system by which state, local and even some nonprofit agency construction projects get ranked on a priority basis and funded with state-issued debt,” she writes.
Riegel notes that for decades lawmakers have used the construction budget, authorized in House Bill 2, to bring bacon home to their districts, adding there’s nothing wrong with the process when the projects are needed.
“The problem is that some projects are needed more than others, and over the years the state got in the habit of promising money to them all, bloating the construction budget and creating a huge backlog of projects it had no intention to build or immediate means for funding,” she writes.
This year, the rubber is hitting the road, Riegel says, because the state can only legally issue up to $395 million worth of debt for construction projects.
“Rather than sticking a bunch of projects into HB2 to make people feel good, the Edwards administration is proposing to fund only ongoing projects to which the state is already legally committed and financially obligated,” she writes. “This approach is a good idea and good government. But it’s a bitter pill to swallow for some in the Capital Region, who had hoped three big-ticket highway expansion projects—pushed both by the Capital Region Legislative Delegation and CRISIS, an industry-led coalition—might find their way into HB2. They didn’t.”
What’s frustrating, Riegel says, is that in the past many of the projects on the wish list eventually moved up and got the cash to proceed. Some of the projects now at the top of the list in this year’s budget include The Audubon Institute in New Orleans, in line for $16.4 million in cash for new Audubon 2020 Exhibits; The Louisiana Children’s Museum, which is slated to receive $8.7 million for a new facility in City Park and another $19.1 million allocated for future years; and The National World War II Museum which will receive nearly $10 million in cash, with $18 million more promised for the future.
“On a gut level, it’s hard to justify $35.1 million in state spending—with $37 million more promised in the future—on museums in New Orleans when traffic through the state’s capital city comes to a virtual standstill several times a week, threatening jobs, safety and the viability of the area’s economy,” she writes.
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