Allain among senators wrestling with House budget

BATON ROUGE — The Senate Finance Committee braced against testimony from executive agency heads Friday as the potential effects of reductions under House Bill 1, the House GOP’s answer to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ proposed budget, were again brought to light.
The committee slogged through nearly 10 teeth-gnashing hours of pleas Thursday afternoon and Friday as the 2017 Legislature enters into its final two weeks.
It is expected the Senate will amend HB1, rearranging some of what the more conservative House wrought in the document that will determine which agency spends how much money in the coming fiscal year that begins July 1.
Finance vice chairman chairman Bret Allain, R-Franklin, told the Manship School News Service that such testimony is key as senators consider how to shuffle state dollars to make budget cuts more equitable.
“It’s still a goal of some members (in the Senate) to have a standstill (no increase) budget,” Allain said. “You can shuffle things around and still have a standstill.”
Allain said providing departments with even standstill budgets could prove difficult with a lack of revenue bills emitting from the House. Only the House of Representatives can enact revenue measures.
HB1 proposed appropriating only 97.5 percent of estimated available funds, an effort by House Republicans to provide a cushion for potential shortfalls in the Revenue Estimating Conference’s projections. Allain said he agrees with the concept — when the state can afford it — but wondered what effect leaving funds unappropriated will have on already cash-strapped departments.
Concerns about high employee turnover rates, the inevitability of layoffs and budgetary control dominated testimony, and will become only more prominent as big-hit areas including higher education and the Department of Health and Hospitals come to the table in the coming week.
The possibility of employee layoffs was a common theme at Thursday’s afternoon and evening committee meetings, with representatives from the governor’s office, inspector general’s office and Louisiana Tax Commission citing expected staff cuts if the budgetary outlook doesn’t improve.
State Attorney General Jeff Landry also expressed concerns Friday about attracting new hires and maintaining current employees with poor existing salary rates.
Landry noted that while his office’s Medicaid Fraud Program boasted of a $2 million return on investment per investigator, he could barely afford to keep his 40 active investigators employed.
“For at least five years, the budget for the (state) Department of Justice has been very unstable,” Landry said. “The means of financing are consistently a moving target. In addition, we have become more dependent on elusive funding.”
Assistant Commissioner for Statewide Services Desireé Honoré Thomas said Thursday the governor’s office would need to lay off five of its 63 employees if funded at projected levels, and the Division of Administration would deactivate two dozen open positions across the State Budget Office, Office of Financial Reporting, and others.
Thomas said the office is already operating on the bare minimum, with employees stretched thin while working overtime hours and assuming additional responsibilities as positions remain vacant. Older employees are retiring early because they’re burned out, creating a drain on important institutional knowledge, she said.
Sen. Gregory Tarver, D-Shreveport, said the state is fiscally limited and doesn’t have the money to fund everyone. Even if offices are doing an excellent job, he said, someone needs to be cut.
“Everybody is singing the same tune that you’re singing, ‘Don’t cut me, cut the man behind the tree.’ Everybody wants to cut everybody else, but somebody has to be cut.”
The debate raged all-day Friday as senators squabbled with Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (LSED) representatives over the district’s $1.3 million contract with SMG in New Orleans and legislative concern over a lack of understanding about LSED’s budgetary practices. LSED oversees the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Smoothie King Center and other recreational facilities in the Crescent City.
The district is projected to receive $91.3 million in statutory dedications and fees from the state for Fiscal Year 2018-19.
“We’re sending $91 million of state money your way, and it feels like we have absolutely no control over anything,” complained Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell.
Senators also raised ethical concerns about SMG providing board members four complimentary tickets per event, equaling roughly 11,200 free tickets to sports games, concerts and other events annually. LSED board member Hilary Landry said board members rarely use the tickets
On the other side of the table, the Attorney General’s Office sought more control of their appropriations. Landry requested to “collapse” the office’s budget, or consolidate from five program funds to two, to give them more flexibility to shift unrestricted monies to underfunded areas.
Testimony will continue throughout the week, as legislators work to piece together a balanced budget before the close of the regular legislative session June 8.