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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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Senate and House bicker over budget
Arthur D. Lauck/The Advocate
State Sens. John Alario, D- Westwego, and Sharon Broome, D-Baton Rouge confer Tuesday morning during debate in a state Senate Committee on Finance hearing.
The state Senate took several shots at both the Louisiana House and the Jindal administration Tuesday in an ongoing struggle over the state’s financial problems.
The most pointed remarks came in a late night meeting of the Senate tax committee.
Many in the Senate were vocally perturbed when the House sent the $28 billion budget bill to the governor rather than work out differences in a conference committee.
The Senate is pushing several revenue-generating measures that the House opposes. The Senate argues the state needs to raise money to lessen cuts to health care and higher education. The House contends that state government needs to tighten its belt.
In the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee Tuesday night, members acquiesced to the House’s argument by voting to defer House bills that would decrease state revenue.
State Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, asked state Rep. Jonathan Perry how he voted on House Bill 1, the main budget legislation.
Perry, who was pushing a tax break for school support workers, retorted that Adley probably already knew the answer to that question.
Adley confirmed that he had a printout of the vote on HB1 showing Perry voted against sending the budget to a conference committee.
“That day I was … cloudy-headed,” Perry said.
Adley started laughing and congratulated Perry on his answer.
State Sen. Dan Morrish, R-Jennings, said Perry is one of his representatives.
“With answers like that, he might soon replace you,” state Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Grosse Tete and the committee’s chairman, told Morrish.
The Senate Committee on Revenue and Fiscal Affairs then voted not to forward House Bill 860, Perry’s legislation, for further consideration.
Other House bills met similar fates or were skipped. The session ends in less than two weeks – on Thursday, June 25 –and a number of House bills are sitting on the committee’s calendar.
State Rep. Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge and chairman of the House tax committee, asked to speak to the panel at the end of the meeting.
He told the Senate committee that he is not ignoring Senate bills that are still with his House committee.
Marionneaux responded that he is not paid enough to stay at the State Capitol past 8:30 p.m. to hear bills. It was 8:30 p.m. at that point.
Earlier in the day, a routine bill to shift money from special funds to cover state budget shortfalls sparked testy debate in a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee.
The Jindal administration wants to use House Bill 802 to plug $48 million into shortfalls in the current year’s budget. Funding is falling short for education, college scholarships and other obligations.
The Senate Finance Committee agreed to the legislation but only after raising questions.
Several lawmakers expressed concern about dipping into funds set up for health care redesign, mineral resources and other purposes.
The debate on the bill was unusually protracted — an indication of the divide over budget issues.
HB802 was just one of a number of budget-related bills pending before the committee with time running short to act on them.
The committee’s chairman, state Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, said the panel will continue to meet.
The bills are the Senate’s biggest negotiation tools in a dispute with the House over funding for higher education and other services.
State Sen. Nick Gautreaux, D-Meaux, likened HB802 — the funds bill — to robbing funds. He questioned whether the Jindal administration thoroughly scoured state agencies for extra dollars.
Ray Stockstill, state director of management and budget, said the administration did what it could and still ended up with shortfalls.
He said $26 million is needed in basic state aid to schools, partly because more teachers were hired than anticipated. He said about $3 million is needed for TOPS, the merit-based Taylor Opportunity Program for Students that pays students college tuition.
“The funds that we’re sweeping to zero, what is the continuing need?” asked state Sen. Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport and vice chairwoman of the committee.
She suggested that lawmakers might be impairing the needs that the funds serve.
State Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans, wanted to know when the administration discovered the outstanding obligations.
Stockstill said he knew about the shortfall in basic state aid to schools in October.
Jackson noted that the state has an $865 million surplus from a previous budget year.
Stockstill said the surplus cannot be used for school aid because of constitutional restrictions.
Jackson then asked about other unmet needs.
She pointed out that the House added $36 million to pay legal judgments despite lacking the revenue for the spending. She asked if the judgments would be taken care of in HB802.
Stockstill shook his head “No.”
He said the state also needs to find $100 million to pay hurricane-related bills that are coming due.
“How much more money are we supposed to make over here?” Jackson asked, a reference to the Senate’s revenue-generating proposals that the House rejected.
The House and the Senate are at odds over the $28 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
The state is facing a $1.3 billion shortfall in the upcoming budget year, prompting a proposal of heavy cuts to higher education and health care.
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