Funds keep ‘slushing’ along

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Nov 15, 2009 - Page: 7B

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The credibility of the panel that is supposed to help trim state spending has taken a big hit.

And once again Louisiana  taxpayers are entitled to ask this question:

Just how serious is state government’s budget crisis?

The credibility gap applies to the Commission on Streamlining Government.

The 10-member committee effectively  rejected a bid to end the use of state tax dollars for legislative pet projects, which are generally known outside the State Capitol as “slush funds.”

State Treasurer John Kennedy, a member of the panel, made a motion to eliminate the spending.

“I don’t think they are priorities,” Kennedy said later.

“If we are really serious about setting priorities, then earmarks are going to be at the bottom of the list,” he said of the projects.
After all, state services face a $3 billion shortfall over the next two years.

State highways and bridges face a $12.7 billion backlog. Louisiana is ranked 47th in the nation in its high school graduation rate.

Leaders of public schools, colleges and universities and hospitals and nursing homes have been complaining for months on how to cope with the state’s biggest budget wreck in decades.

And the commission is supposed to recommend ways  out of the mess next month.

Kennedy said he figures the state has spent about $100 million on the projects in the past five years.

That is significant, even in a state with a $29 billion operating budget.