Details of budget changes still being ironed out
Leader News Services
06-26-2009
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana lawmakers may have wrapped up their work, but legislative leaders said it would take several days to determine what the session would cost the state in tax breaks and just what managed to escape the chopping block in next year’s budget.
The House and Senate agreed to a compromise on next year’s $28 billion budget in the final hour Thursday of a contentious nine-week session that was defined by sharp disagreements over how to cope with a state general fund revenue drop of $1.3 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Legislators also passed a flurry of tax breaks before heading home, some of which would cost the state in the upcoming fiscal year and others that won’t drain dollars from the treasury until later years, when the state’s budget problems already were expected to worsen.
Though lawmakers couldn’t give a tally on the tax breaks or extensive details about the budget, House and Senate leaders praised the work and said the budget would provide enough money to continue needed services while preserving higher education initiatives.
“While we had our disagreements, I think we have come up with a very viable solution,” said Senate President Joel Chaisson, D-Destrehan.
The 55-page budget deal involves steering $176 million more in state dollars to colleges, health care, agriculture services and tourism programs, to stave off some cuts. Also negotiated was $34 million for lawmakers’ pet projects.
The plans used money from the state’s “rainy day” fund, an expired insurance grant fund, health care trust funds and incentive money returned by The Shaw Group to help higher education. The health care dollars grew with federal matching cash.
Lawmakers shrank cuts for higher education from $220 million to about $107 million.
Cuts to the state health department were reduced from $440 million to about $200 million after legislators used state dollars to draw down federal matching cash for the Medicaid program that provides care to the poor, elderly and disabled. Proposed cuts to libraries, state historic sites, arts grants and other tourism programs were reversed.
The new fiscal year begins next week.
Many of the more controversial proposals were either watered down or killed outright.
Among those proposals that failed to gain final passage were a ban on smoking in bars and casinos, an attempt to stop hand-held cell phone use while driving, expansions of property tax exemptions for certain homeowners and a repeal of the motorcycle helmet requirement for adults. Jindal successfully fought off attempts to open most of the records in his office to public scrutiny and to overturn his decision to reject $98 million in federal stimulus cash to expand unemployment benefits.
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