Session preview: Entertainment, frustration

State Rep. Beryl Amedee said Monday that she doesn’t know when a special legislative session will be called to tackle next year’s anticipated budget shortfall, for which the estimates start at $1 billion.
Amedee and other legislators don’t even know if such a session will happen before the regular session starts March 12, or after the session ends by June 4, or even if Gov. John Bel Edwards will call any special session at all.
If Edwards does, Amedee told members of the St. Mary Industrial Group at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City, “I expect it will be frustrating and entertaining – entertaining for you, more frustrating for me.”
Amedee, R-Houma, previewed the 2018 legislative session – the regular one required by the Louisiana Constitution. That session seems sure to be dominated by the “fiscal cliff,” the expiration of temporary sales taxes at the same time the 2018-19 fiscal year begins July 1.
The constitution prohibits passage of deficit budgets, so Edwards, Amedee and other lawmakers must look for some combination of budget cuts and revenue increases that will work fiscally and politically.
The governor, who was hammered over his tax hike proposals during last year’s budget crisis, said Dec. 20 that he won’t call a special session for February unless a consensus on taxes develops by Jan. 19. The Associated Press quoted Edwards as saying the $1 billion target would require cuts too “nasty” to swallow, especially in health care and education.
The AP said Tuesday that Edwards offered a bit more wiggle room to lawmakers. He said he won’t hold firm to the Jan. 19 deadline.
“If we’re making progress and we’re just not quite there by the 19th, I can extend it,” Edwards told the Press Club of Baton Rouge. “But you can’t extend it indefinitely, for just purely logistical reasons. We have a certain window when the special session would fit” between Mardi Gras and the start of the regular session March 12.
House Speaker Taylor Barras said he’s optimistic the two sides could reach a tax deal for a February session but might need time beyond next week. He said House lawmakers need more details about the governor’s tax proposals. Barras and the governor met Monday to continue talks.
In Morgan City, Amedee said Edwards has been more forthcoming with the media than with legislative Republicans about his roadmap.
She said she knows of no Republican, even in the party leadership, who has received specifics about the governor’s budget plan.
Edwards’ “nasty cuts” language means “whichever cuts make the public cry loudest. That’s what will be in the plan.”
Amedee said some in her party might go along with a continuation of a half- or quarter-center sales tax, “but only if it’s tied to reform.”
So far, she said, Democrats have proposed or helped enact little in the way of the reforms she’d like to see.
Those include an “Ohio checkbook” transparency provision that would require state financial dealings to be posted online. She’d also like to see some real budget cuts, rather than just reductions in proposed increases, as well as Medicaid and pension reforms.
Another possibility: a state constitutional convention that would put local governments more in control, and responsible, for local projects.
“We still operate under the Huey Long model that sucks everything back to Baton Rouge,” Amedee said.
The constitution might also be amended to give local governments a local option on the homestead exemption rather than imposing it statewide. For most local governments other than municipalities, the homestead exemption protects the first $75,000 of a primary home’s market value from property taxes. Conservatives often complain that the exemption pushes too much of the property tax burden onto businesses.
Amedee also was able to provide some good fiscal news.
November was the third consecutive month of local job growth, she said.
The 51st District that Amedee represents, and which covers the Morgan City area of St. Mary plus portions of Assumption, Lafourche and Terrebonne, has attracted $39 million in new investment, resulting in 303 construction jobs and 384 other jobs.
In a state where government revenue depends heavily on energy revenue, the rig count was up by 12 in 2017, and the price of oil seems to have stabilized at about $60 per barrel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast is for prices to remain at the $60-65 level through 2018.