Legislators: Reduce tax exemptions to plug budget hole

Local legislators say reducing tax exemptions will be a large part of shoring up continual holes in the state budget.
State Reps. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, and Joe Harrison, R-Gray, indicated that if the governor were paying attention to the affairs of the state, the problem might not be as bad as it is.
Jones and Harrison said there have to be a combination of changes to close the $103.5 million deficit that has opened up in this year’s $25 billion budget as well as the $1.6 billion budget shortfall projected for next year.
The state’s income forecasting panel, called the Revenue Estimating Conference, lessened revenue predictions Monday for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and for the next budget year that begins July 1, to account for the continuing slide in per-barrel oil prices.
“In the past it’s been covered often with funds that were statutorily dedicated other places. Those funds have been swept several times and basically filled the holes … This time the funds aren’t there. These are real deficiencies and shortages,” Jones said.
Harrison agreed: “This isn’t a problem we don’t have enough money. It’s a problem we’re spending it in the wrong places”
Of the exemptions, Jones said there are certain large international insurance companies that have been receiving exemptions since the Great Depression. The exemptions made sense then, but they don’t make sense now, he said.
“Some of the exemptions, like Tom Benson gets $30 million a year to keep the Saints here or whatever, we can’t keep doing that … No other state in the union does that,” Jones said.
Jones said that along with reducing exemptions, there has to be a willingness to make associated cuts.
“There’s still some places that we can cut. There’s still some things that we can hold the line on,” Jones said, citing as an example the inflationary costs of the state’s casualty self-insurance fund because the inflation isn’t happening.
We have to “take them piece by piece. There’s no one thing that can fix a $1.6 billion budget deficit,” Jones said.
Harrison, who said he requested a special session to look into fiscal matters that was quashed by the administration, said gaming revenue should be rededicated to education, as it was originally intended when it was voted into existence in the state.
To demonstrate how higher education has been raided for funding, Harrison said he got calls from Fletcher Technical Community College, South Central Louisiana Technical College — Young Memorial Campus, and Nicholls State University, all indicating the state took some of their vehicles for sale at auction. They are now forced to rent vehicles, he said.
“This is a very critical sign of desperation on the part of the administration … Is (Commissioner of Administration) Kristy Nichols asking everyone to check the couches for change next? That’s a desperate measure.”
Harrison said he is meeting with the three schools’ administrators today to discuss how they will deal with their share of the anticipated $300 million in higher education cuts coming this fiscal year.
Jones indicated Jindal’s decision to not participate in Medicaid expansion is leaving about $1 billion in federal dollars on the table.
That money could “keep our hospitals strong and probably avoid any cuts in health care,” he said.
If Louisiana doesn’t take the funds, the other 40 states that have accepted the expansion get our share, Jones added.
Both legislators indicated the governor’s political aspirations are not helping the situation.
“We have the governor playing national politics right now that’s not in the best interest of the state. That would solve probably 90 percent of this problem,” Jones said.
Harrison said the “dysfunctional administration” has to be there to do the job.
Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, was contacted, but did not return a call for comment.