At the beginning of the regular legislative session, Gov. John Bel Edwards and legislative leaders publicly discussed the need to end the session early, to allow enough time to consider revenue raising measures during a second special session. Now, House Speaker Taylor Barras appears less willing to follow through on that earlier commitment, which is needed to prevent devastating cuts to healthcare and higher education. Julia O’Donoghue with Nola.com/Times Picayune reports:

“No one runs their business like this. No family runs their budget this way. If I did, I would be broke or divorced, or probably both,” (Senate Finance Chairman Eric) LaFleur said. Barras was initially in favor of ending the regular session early and starting the special session in the middle of May. In March, he told reporters that he wanted to get through the regular session early, though he would never commit to a specific date. Now he appears to be backing off that view. On Monday, Barras said a special session would probably occur, but mostly because the governor wants to call one. He declined to say whether he thought the special session was personally necessary.  

Barras placed the blame on the Senate, which he said is not considering House legislation fast enough. Senate leaders disagreed:

Senate leaders in both parties — Republicans and Democrats — balked at the Barras’ characterization that they would be holding up that process and aren’t moving House bills fast enough through the upper chamber.”We have, quite frankly, been clearing our calendar,” Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, said in an interview Tuesday.

The Advocate’s Lanny Keller, meanwhile, notes that GOP leaders are of two minds when it comes to cutting the budget – they like the idea as a concept, but not when it comes to actually implementing reductions.

For state Rep. Lance Travis and his sidekicks at the fiscal Alamo, the line in the sand suddenly shifted. All of a sudden, with dire forecasts coming in and the close vote on the House floor — only two to spare, with eight GOP defections — the budget is no longer quite the noble attack on Big Government that it was just a few days ago. In fact, it hardly even counts.

The secrecy of tax incentives

Louisiana, like most states, offers big tax incentives to major corporations to attract or keep them in the state. Unlike most government spending, these taxpayer dollars are often shrouded in secrecy. Nathan Jensen, writing for The New York Times, explains the limited amount of information available to the public regarding the state and local tax breaks being doled out to companies:

Another strategy to avoid transparency in a competition like this is through complexity. The idea is to make economic development so twisted that it’s nearly impossible to figure out who is responsible for it. If governments aren’t submitting these bids, with taxpayers’ money, who is responsible for economic development?In many states, companies are wooed by getting a break on paying local taxes. In some of these cases, local interests get overlooked — in particular, schools. There are school districts where economic developers were empowered to give away the tax revenues without the input of educators. The California Teachers’ Association supported a law to help stop giving away their tax dollars. Louisiana just allowed school districts to modify or decline these incentives.

 

Courts face budget pressure

Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson gave her annual address to the Legislature this week, during which she urged lawmakers to fully fund the judiciary’s $180 million budget request. The House version of the state budget only provides $164 million, which could force the elimination of specialty courts that deal with drug offenders, child neglect cases and re-entry services. Katie Gagliano of the Advocate reports:

[Johnson] said the budget helps cover discretionary programs that bolster communities and reduce incarceration and recidivism rates. While funds for judicial salaries and retirement benefits are mandated by law, funds for these programs are not and suffer from cuts, she said. …Current-day funding wasn’t Johnson’s only focus. Looking ahead, Johnson said the state must “seriously consider” funding the entire judicial branch through state appropriations rather than the existing piecemeal funding structure. “It is unreasonable to think we can cut funding to courts and then expect mostly indigent criminal defendants to take up the slack,” Johnson said, asking later, “Would you have faith in the system if you knew that every single actor in the criminal justice system – including the judges, the district attorneys, the court-appointed lawyers – everybody relied upon a steady stream of guilty pleas and verdicts to fund the office?”

A dedicated fund for TOPS?

One of the problems with the state budget, according to conservative critics, is that too much money is dedicated to specific uses and off-limit to cuts in times of austerity. But a bill by a Baton Rouge lawmaker would make that problem worse by locking up new money to fund TOPS college scholarships. Rep. Franklin Foil’s House Bill 256 would create the TOPS Income Fund, which would have a yet-to-be-determined dedicated source of revenue to fund the scholarships. Harrison Golden of WGMB Fox 44 reports:

Foil said the next step will involve determining where the TOPS Income Fund will get its money. He suggested passing new revenue measures, so the fund doesn’t take from existing pots. “If we develop something new, or if we have enough money coming from some sort of litigation, that money could then go into this fund,” he said. The measure has widespread support from members of the TOPS Task Force, which met earlier this year to discuss how to keep the ballooning program afloat. The scholarship’s cost has grown tenfold since its inception.

Number of the Day

$1.5 billion – The amount of state and local tax incentives the Louisiana Department of Economic Development offered to a Taiwanese plastic company planning to build a new plant in Louisiana. (Source: Associated Press)