Last-minute spending
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Festivals celebrating mayhaws, jazz, movies and Christmas lights found a place in the state budget despite a financial crunch.
Lawmakers also made room for senior citizen programs, highway beautification, museums, small-town high schools and furniture shopping in the $28 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts in less than a week.
Most of the amendments are small monetarily — such as $15,000 for fire hydrants in St. Mary Parish and $7,755 for the Starks Mayhaw Festival in Calcasieu Parish. Added together, projects important to legislators’ districts total $34 million.
Lawmakers inserted the amendments into House Bill 881, a supplemental budget bill after Gov. Bobby Jindal stripped them from the main budget legislation.
The House leadership advocated strongly for the amendments. They were approved in the last half hour of the two-month legislative session.
House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, said the projects no longer deserve the criticism they once attracted.
“We’re down to what we should be doing the ‘member amendments’ for,” he said, citing economic development and small projects.
“Member amendments” include funding for roads and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, and often are derided as being “pork projects.”
The Purple Circle Social Clubs of the “member amendments” are gone, Tucker said, referring to a Baton Rouge project that raised eyebrows two years ago.
Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, said the Senate refused to back a “member amendment” total that exceeded additional funding for health care.
He said the $45 million that legislators agreed to for health care on the last day of the session paved the way for $34 million in “member projects.”
“It shouldn’t be a top priority, and I don’t think it was here,” Chaisson said of the projects.
Jindal’s vetoes of projects from the main budget bill were largely for technical reasons. The Senate tied them to funding that was unlikely to materialize.
The contingency impediment now is removed.
However, Jindal took a strong stance on the projects last year, purging $16 million of them because he disagreed they belonged in the state budget.
Jindal also has line-item veto power over the supplemental budget. Kyle Plotkin, Jindal’s press secretary, said the governor is reviewing HB881, line-by-line.
Using the state’s “rainy day” fund, a dormant insurance fund, economic development money and unneeded health care funds, lawmakers found $210 million in additional dollars on the final day of the session to bolster the state budget.
Higher education received an extra $100 million. The state agriculture department, arts programs, health care and legislators’ projects also got funding.
The additional funding by no means made higher education and health care whole.
The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana took note of the “member amendments” in its wrap-up report on the legislative session that ended Thursday.
“In the midst of a fiscal crisis, budget-makers continued their usual practice of loading up the budget bill with parochial amendments (a.k.a. slush, earmarks, non-state expenditures),” the nonprofit group that researches governmental issues wrote.
Barry Erwin with the Council for A Better Louisiana said that lawmakers could have sent a strong message by not funding “member amendments” in the face of budget cuts to higher education and health care.
CABL is a nonprofit group that advocates positions on public policy.
“My sense is that a lot of people would look at many of these amendments and conclude that they fall short of being a top priority, particularly at this time,” Erwin said.
The budget dominated the final days of the legislative session.
A $1.3 billion drop in state revenue prompted Jindal to propose deep cuts to higher education and health care in the upcoming fiscal year.
Legislators disagreed on how to minimize those cuts. The disagreement divided the House and the Senate.
The state Senate focused on chopping in half the $219 million in cuts proposed for public colleges and universities.
The chamber advanced two proposals — delaying an income tax break and withdrawing money from the state’s “rainy day” fund.
The House rejected the tax break delay and negotiated on the “rainy day” fund withdrawal.
On the final day of the session, the two chambers agreed to take $86 million from the $775 million “rainy day” fund, which was set up to tide the state over during a budget deficit.
PULL OUT
Area projects in the state budget
A number of area projects found their way into the state budget on the final day of the legislative session.
- Louisiana Arts and Science Museum, $150,000
- East Baton Rouge Council on Aging, $25,000
- Baton Rouge Area Alcohol and Drug Center, $50,000
- Baton Rouge Child Advocacy Center, $50,000
- LSU Fire and Emergency Training Institute, $1.3 million
- DNA storage facility equipment for LSU’s Museum of Natural History, $40,000
- Southern University Lab School for student support programs, $200,000
- Joy Corp. of Baton Rouge, $25,000
- Ascension Parish Government for the purchase of Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, $600,000
- Greenwell Springs-Airline Economic Development District, $25,000
- East Baton Rouge Parish School Board for middle school truancy center, $100,000
- Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office for emergency equipment, $20,000
- City of Baton Rouge Constable’s Office, $25,000
- City of Baton Rouge for community services for the elderly, youth and victims against crime, $300,000
Source: Louisiana Legislature
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