BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - As Louisiana’s lawmakers sift through ideas to fill financial gaps, one idea has been off-limits: scaling back spending protections that limit their ability to determine the state’s budget priorities.
Legislators have repeatedly lamented that too much of the state’s budget is “dedicated,” locked up by either the state constitution or state laws that dictate how certain dollars must be spent. Public colleges and health services for the poor have few of those protections, so they are more vulnerable to budget cuts.
But so far, lawmakers have decided to keep in place the statutory and constitutional limits that give them less room to maneuver in financing plans.
A proposal to lift constitutional protections that keep an array of specially created funds shielded from budget cuts was spurned by the Senate budget committee. A bill to shrink some of the protections for statutorily created funds never even got a hearing in the House budget committee because it didn’t have enough support for passage.
The more than $24 billion budget up for House debate Thursday instead would use tax changes, money from improved income forecasts and patchwork financing to close about $850 million of the shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1. House leaders estimate lawmakers need another $140 million to address the remaining list of budget needs identified by the House and Senate.
Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, said when the state faces deep financial problems, all options for reworking state spending should be available to lawmakers.
“I think our constituents are tired of hearing our hands are tied,” Morrell told the Senate Finance Committee, before it voted 8-2 Monday against his proposal that could have unlocked some of the constitutional protections.
Senators worried that too much would be open for slashing, particularly the $3.6 billion public-school financing formula. Similar concerns about undoing protections on funds established in state law stalled a House bill by Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, that was pulled from its scheduled Tuesday hearing in the House Appropriations Committee.
“The House leadership had ticked it and determined there weren’t enough votes to get it passed,” said Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, a House leader involved in budget negotiations.
Robideaux said he “felt strongly” that lawmakers should have debated whether areas of the budget should be off-limits from cuts. But he said: “We had a thorough discussion about it, and I was in the minority. We have enough battles going on.”
Many of the protected funds are filled from fees and taxes paid by people and businesses for a specific purpose. Trying to dip into the funds to pay for general government services repeatedly raises complaints.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin said Talbot’s bill to trim fund protections was running into complaints about individual pots of money that lawmakers wanted to keep shielded.
“They were just going to pick that apart,” said Fannin, R-Jonesboro.
While lawmakers may not touch the specially protected funds this year, the issue likely isn’t going away. Several candidates in this fall’s election for governor have raised concerns, saying they want to lessen the protections.
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Online:
Senate Bill 196 and House Bill 762: www.legis.la.gov
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