, chuck@rustonleader.com
07-13-2007
The president of the Council for a Better Louisiana was guest speaker at the Ruston Kiwanis Club Thursday at Howard Johnson’s in Ruston.Barry Erwin, a graduate of Louisiana Tech University and president and CEO of CABL, spoke to two areas in his review of the recent legislative session in Baton Rouge — ethics and finance. First, he explained the difference in CABL and PAR — the Public Affairs Research Council.
“A lot of people confuse the two organizations,” Erwin said. “They are designed for research; it’s not their role to try to see their recommendations passed, just make their research available.”
Erwin said CABL is more of an advocacy group.
“We have an affinity about what we think will work,” Erwin. “We are an action arm; we’re similar, yet separate in our mission.”
In speaking of the financial steps taken during the 2007 Legislative Session, Erwin said legislators had more money to spend than ever before.
“We might never have this much again, or at least for a long time,” Erwin said. “There was a lot of new money from recovery funds in New Orleans and higher oil prices.”
Erwin said about $2 billion of non-recurring money was put into roads, coastal restoration, the Road Home Program, health care, higher education and ports. About $1.2 billion of recurring funds were put into areas such as pay raises and salaries for those in education, police officers, firefighters and state workers, expansion of the Pre-K Program, public schools and higher education, including providing 100 percent funding for schools in the University of Louisiana System.
“There are some areas that were not addressed that perhaps should have been,” Erwin said.
“They didn’t put any money into the state retirement system and no recurring money in the transportation department. They also could have spent more in technology.
“But, at the end of the day, most of the money was well spent.”
Erwin said there was a potential financial problem — the legislators also passed about $500 million in tax cuts.
“The governor said she would go for about $180 million,” Erwin said. “Now she has to make a couple of choices: veto some spending or veto some tax cuts.”
Other areas that Erwin said received significant financial support were The Road Home Program — about $1 billion in funding — and health care for children living in poverty, or the working poor.
As for ethics, Erwin said CABL supported legislative financial disclosure.
“The majority of the legislature didn’t want it,” Erwin said. “The House passed a version, the Senate passed a different version that differed on certain points, then it got killed in the joint committee. It looked like everyone voted for ethics reform, when in fact no one really did.”
Erwin said the version that came out of the joint committee included local government.
“We were not interested in that,” Erwin said. “We felt like local government could handle that themselves.”
The inclusion of local governments was pushed by the state’s chambers of commerce, Erwin said.
“We’re at the bottom of the national rankings for disclosure,” Erwin said. “If we’re going to do something like that, we should study it first to see what kind of effect it would have. We have done that with the Legislature, but not local government.”
Two other ethics bills were looked at: one dealing with pet projects and one with cockfighting.
“With pet projects, there are a lot of things questionable with no accountability,” Erwin said. “A bill that would have added transparency got killed.”
As for cockfighting, Erwin said a bill was passed that got rid of it — eventually.
“The bill says it becomes illegal August 2008, but starting August 2007 you can’t gamble on it, so what’s the point,” Erwin said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Erwin closed by saying the state’s voters faced one of their most important elections.
“With term limits, there will be a lot of new faces, especially in the House,” Erwin said. “We have a tremendous opportunity. In the past, incumbents have rarely been challenged leaving us few choices; most will be contested this time. It will be very critical for everyone to get out and vote.”
Erwin said CABL will ask all candidates to fill out a questionnaire that outlines where they stand on different issues. He said the responses would be made available to the media.
For more information about CABL, visit the Web site at www.cabl.org.
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