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Louisiana Legislators recently wrapped up a special session aimed at closing a $304 million budget gap for the fiscal year that ends on June 30.
The Legislators did close that gap, with a combination of cuts and one-time money from the state’s Rainy Day savings account.
One Acadiana, formerly the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, recognized the efforts of the members of the Acadiana Delegation of Legislators during a press conference Wednesday morning.
“This is not what I think most people would describe as a fun time to be in the Legislature,” One Acadiana President and CEO Jason El Koubi said. “I think it is a time when it is particularly important to recognize progress that is happening, because it is so difficult.
“That is why we wanted to bring people together today to recognize the efforts of the Acadiana Delegation.”
Among the members of the delegation who attended Wednesday were Speaker of the House of Representatives Taylor Barras of New Iberia, Rep. Blake Miguez, who represents the Erath area, Rep. Stuart Bishop of Lafayette, Jean-Paul Cousson of Lafayette, Rep. Mike Huval, Rep. Phillip DeVillier and Rep. Terry Landry.
“I thank One Acadiana for being there,” Barras said, “particularly when we need you the most.”
Barras thanked his fellow Legislators from the Acadiana.
“I fortunately have a tremendous delegation behind me in the House and a group of Senators,” Barras said.
Barras explained that members of the delegation, as well as legislators from around the state on both sides of the isle worked to find common ground on closing the $304 million budget gap. That included cuts to agencies and using $99 million from the Budget Stabilization account, also known as the Rainy Day fund. Barras said the goal is to go away from using one-time money in the future.
“We have worked diligently to wean ourselves off dependence of one-time money,” Barras said. “There are appropriate times to use one-time money. I like to say those are one-time expenses that never happen again. When you start using one-time money to operate general government every day, you can get yourself in a bind.”
Part of the effort to get away from one-time money is to utilize language in the State Constitution that allows the Legislature to take a small portion, around 3 percent, from statutory dedications, such as funds dedicated to Wildlife and Fisheries, Office of Motor Vehicles, etc.
“If you have a statutory dedication that collects $100 million in a year,” Barras said, “we would basically take $3 million of that to pay down state debt. The department would then get the use of the $97 million going forward. That has not been the practice. The practice has been that the agency has been using 100 percent of the funds. When you add that up amongst various funds, that is approximately $96 million for next year.”
Barras made a proposal to utilize the money from the statutory dedication for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1. The budget gap at that point is expected to be around $400 million.
“If we were going to use $99 million from the Rainy Day fund,” Barras said, “the only way I knew we would get the votes in the House to do that is to come up with a reform plan on statutory dedications that paid debt according to the way the Constitution dictates.
“Hopefully that will allow us not to have to worry about mid-year cuts and make the needs for these special sessions go away.”
Miguez, who went into the recent special session not wanting to use any of the Rainy Day Fund, said he is in favor of the move.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Miguez said. “These agencies can take a three-percent cut. What Speaker Barras did was spread a three-percent cut across a part of the budget that hasn’t happened. Louisiana has a spending problem and I back this 100 percent.
“I also support the cuts the governor (John Bel Edwards) found and the cuts the Senate and House added to that.”
El Koubi acknowledged that an important factor coming out of the special session is the fact that no major cuts occurred to health care and higher education.
“Higher education and health care are significant economic drivers for us here in Acadiana,” El Koubi said.
Dr. Joseph Savoy, president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette agreed that the UL Lafayette, South Louisiana Community College and LSU Eunice have a great impact on the area.
“About 90 percent of students in Acadiana who go onto post secondary education enter through one of our institutions,” Savoy said. “Many of the professionals in our region come from one of these institutions. They are very important, not only to the economic health today, but economic health and diversity of our community in the future. Unfortunately higher education and health care have been focuses of cuts in recent years.
“We weren’t sure what was going to happen this year, but we were pleased with outcome.”
Bishop said the way to assure that there are no threat of cuts to those areas in the future is to better control spending.
“We are facing tough times,” Bishop said. “The people of Louisiana have spoken and they want smaller government. We were able to accomplish that in this special session. We made more cuts than we have in the past. We did it without affecting vital services and higher education.”
Landry said he feels criminal justice reform would help the state’s budget in a big way.
“We are spending $700 million locking people up,” Landry said. “Fifty-two percent of them are for non-violent and non-sexual crimes.
“Criminal justice reform can save us an enormous amount of money and still keep our communities safe.”
The regular session begins on April 10 and will conclude in June. Many of these issues will be on the table. El Koubi One Acadiana and its partners will continue to work with the Acadiana Delegations during the session.
“We have a number of priorities and we look forward to working with our local Legislators,” El Koubi said.