Lawmakers join search for budget solutions

During the 2015 Louisiana regular legislative session, St. Mary Parish legislators plan to look for ways to close the projected $1.6 billion deficit in the 2015-16 state budget while still protecting areas such as higher education and health care, they say. The session begins Monday and ends June 11.
“There is no other issue for this legislative session. It’s about the budget,” State Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, said. Legislators are looking for consensus in order to balance the state’s budget, Allain said. “We’ve cut health care and higher ed enough. We can’t afford to keep doing that,” Allain said. “Everybody’s going to have to come together and give a little bit.”
The state’s fiscal year 2015-16 budget begins July 1.
Though the budget shortfall is getting all the attention, the state will still have $24.5 billion to spend that needs to be allocated as effectively as possible, State Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, said.
Part of easing the state’s budget situation is to put a cap on tax breaks or even eliminate some of those tax breaks, Jones said.
“We’re giving away too much to people who really have no incentives to do anything more than what they would’ve been doing anyway,” Jones said.
State Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Gray, said the state hasn’t fixed the budget process itself. If the state leaves dedicated funding in place that should be cut while leaving higher education and health care vulnerable, “you have nowhere else to go,” Harrison said.
Harrison called for a special legislative session to discuss the budget several months ago, but couldn’t get the support to hold that session he thought he would, he said.
Forecasts for the state’s budget from 2016 into 2018 are “very, very dismal,” Harrison said. “We have to do some serious work on tearing the budget down and putting together the kind of revenue we need for the future of our state,” Harrison said.
Jones believes what Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration has done to higher education “borders on criminal,” he said. The state cannot continue to allow so many tuition increases, Jones said.
Protecting higher education is a majority priority for Harrison as well, he said. Harrison is “a staunch supporter” of Nicholls State, South Central Louisiana Technical College’s Young Memorial Campus and Fletcher Technical Community College, which he called the best system in Louisiana to have a major university and two of the state’s best technical schools coordinate with one another.
“You look at what they’ve done. It should be the model for the state. We’ve been beating that drum for the last five years,” Harrison said.
Students can take 100 or 200 level courses at Fletcher or Young Memorial to reduce costs to students, and then move on to Nicholls State to get a four-year degree, Harrison said.
Fees and tuition make up 70 percent of university and college budgets now in Louisiana, while the state accounts for just 30 percent of their funding, which used to be 40 percent tuition and 60 percent state funding, Harrison said.
Jones plans to oppose Jindal’s proposal to get rid of the state’s inventory tax credit, he said.
“We do so much warehousing here (in St. Mary and lower St. Martin parishes),” Jones said. “That’s a tax credit that actually produces jobs.”
That tax credit has been in place since the 1960s or 70s and encourages people to operate warehouses, which, in turn, creates jobs, Jones said.
“If we were to lose that, a lot of people would just move their warehouses to another state,” Jones said.
On Monday, legislators will approve the state’s official road and bridge priority list, Jones said. That list will secure the $13 million for maintenance on the La. 182 bridge and $15 million for maintenance on the U.S. 90 bridge, Jones said. Funding for those two projects would then be available in 2016, Jones said.
Jones wants to ensure that legislators get funding to do more patchwork until they can get additional money to fix roads in the parish, he said.
Also during the session, Jones will ensure the Port of Morgan City continues to receive the necessary funds to complete its Government Emergency and Operations Center. The port received $7.1 million in state funding to help build the center.
“I’m going to make sure that that funding stream continues to flow to conclusion,” Jones said.
Completion on the center is scheduled for the end of September.

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com