Allain: Budget woes marked session

Sen. Bret Allain said most of his time in the state legislature has been taken up with his work on the Senate finance committee.
Allain, (Dist. 21, R-Franklin), said the $24.6 billion state budget for 2015 represented a 3.2 percent decrease due to reduction in federal dollars.
“We only have discretion over about $2 billion of the budget, and all of that is in health care and higher education,” Allain said. “When there is a shortfall…most of it lands on health care and higher ed.”
He said those funds have “taken enough. If we cut higher education much more we’ll be cutting way deep into the bone.”
The committee did find $14.5 million in new assistance for students with “profound disabilities that have been neglected for far too long.”
There was also $40 million to the Workforce and Innovation for a Stronger Economy Fund, a workforce development plan to promote paths of education in higher education and technical colleges in such areas as welders, engineers, accounts and more.
Allain said a survey of economic development of the area showed a need for 4,000 programs that can’t be produced fast enough.
The TOPS higher education program was increased by $32 million, topping a total of $300 million in the fund. Allain said there’s concern that costs are out of control and some students are not being adequately served by the program.
Federally-qualified health programs, such as Teche Action Clinic, received an additional $6 million. “We did that because they have really been overrun by the uninsured,” Allain said. “They’re trying to find health care anywhere they can, and they’ve seen an increase of 10 percent in the amount of uninsured that they’ve served lately.”
Another $1.4 million was given in state aid to local libraries; $4.4 million to state police pay raises; $26.5 million for raises for state employees. State police and employees have not had raises in four years, he said.
“We did what we could, we spread the money where we could. It was not a perfect budget by any means but we did the best with what we had,” Allain said.
The state capital outlay bill of $6 billion included several street overlays in St. Mary Parish; drainage in Bayou Vista; recreation in Centerville and Bayou Vista; Charenton Navigation and Drainage Canal infrastructure; and Caffery Park improvements and renovation of City Hall in Franklin.
Allain said the Atchafalaya Basin Program received an additional $10 million for protection and enhancement.
“St. Mary and this district did very well,” Allain said.
He also introduced and passed a “catch and cook” bill.
“You can now go out and catch a fish, any legally caught fish, and bring it in to any participating restaurant and they can cook your fish for you,” Allain said. “That’s now going to be legal… it was very much promoted by the lieutenant governor for tourism.”
Allain’s “heavy lift” bill was forbidding levee districts from suing oil companies.
“It defines who has the right… to enforce permits and protect our coast has been the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources, Coastal Protection and Recreation Authority and the parishes,” he said. “It was never envisioned that a levee board would have the right to sue, broadly, a whole lot of oil companies,” he said of a recent controversy in which a New Orleans levee board filed suit against several oil firms.
The bill also specified that any money obtained from a suit had to be spent on the coast and restoration.
“It was sending the wrong message to the industry that supported us for so long,” Allain said.