Budget funding restored

The Senate Committee on Finance unanimously moved to the Senate floor the state budget with amendments that restored funding cut from higher education, children and family services, corrections, veteran’s affairs and sheriff’s housing in the House version.
House Bill 1, by Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would not have spent about $206 million of the expected revenue for fiscal year 2017-18 as a precaution against midyear deficits. The Senate committee left nothing on the table, and reallocated those funds to find money for agencies sorely hit.
All other state agencies will receive a 2 percent trim.
TOPS will be fully funded, along with the state judicial system, and the parish councils on aging, Civil Service and Probation and Parole will also receive 2 percent increases in total funding, mostly for raises in the case of the latter two categories.
“This is a budget with a great deal of austerity,” Committee chairman Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, said. “We’re trying to do what’s prudent and responsible.”
The committee’s version of the plan also addresses a new $27 million decrease in this year’s revenue forecast, and $80 million in current ongoing expenses. The House’s plan did not, and would have essentially caused an immediate deficit next year.
“That’s really kicking the can down the road,” LaFleur said.
“The House put in every effort they could,” Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, said. “It was short on the supplemental needs, which would have caused a shortfall.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards liked the Senate action.
“The Senate Finance Committee has crafted an appropriate spending plan that better funds the state’s priorities,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement late in the day. “Make no mistake, this budget will still impose painful spending cuts, but it does so in a way that won’t overly burden citizens of the state.”
The Senate created an extra $146 million by delaying state payments to certain health care providers. The Department of Health and Hospitals will still sustain an additional $34 million cut from their original request, with “I know (DHH) has had to perform miracles – turn water into wine and walk on water,” Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, said. “You have sustained cuts consistently over the past couple of years. I’m very concerned with the implications of not funding mental health.”
LaFleur and representatives for DHH said they felt the department could sustain these cuts, noting that they have found more effective ways to operate the mental health programs.
Public-private partnership hospitals will still suffer a cut of about $80 million, and rural hospitals will receive about $1.5 million less than their request.
Committee members agreed to continue to work on the budget as it moved to look for additional funding for DHH.
HB 1 was expected to move to the Senate floor Saturday, where it could be amended further. The Senate will pass its final version to the House where the more conservative body can accept the amendments or reject them. If the latter, it goes to a conference committee of three representatives and three senators to hammer out a final compromise.
All this has to be accomplished before 6 p.m. Thursday when the regular session of the 2017 Legislature ends. However, the governor announced his intention to call a special session for the purpose of passing state spending and construction budget bills that would convene in case more time is required 30 minutes after the gavel comes down on the regular session.