Lawmakers rate session cautiously

By MIKE NIXON

mike@tri-parishtimes.com

Members of the Tri-parish’s legislative delegation were reluctant to make judgment calls as they entered the final hours of the 2012 Louisiana Legislative Session.

How to balance a budget for fiscal year 2013 with or without pulling from rainy day funds or take in one-time cash from the reserves of select departments was a central argument as they approached the finish line. It carried disagreement between state House and Senate members throughout the weekend.

However, on Sunday night House members split and a majority agreed to support Senate changes made earlier in the week. They then accepted the $25.6 billion state budget.

The House voted 62-40 to adopt Senate changes and restored $300 million in cuts. The change meant accepting a final plan that includes withdrawing nearly $205 million from the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund, commonly known as the rainy day fund, and lifting more than $260 million in one-time money from fees collected by select departments.

“This is a responsible budget that is balanced, doesn’t raise taxes, continues to reduce the size of state government and protects critical services, including higher education and health care,” Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a prepared statement. “The budget builds on our efforts to reform and restructure government to improve services even as we streamline operations to save taxpayer dollars rather than raise taxes on our people.”

For veteran legislators the challenges were nothing new. As a result, accomplishments for the region seemed that much greater and disappointments left them more determined to re-address concerns next year.

First time office holders confirmed that the process was more challenging than expected, but stated they were not deterred from performing what they were elected to do.

“It was one of the most challenging things I think I’ve ever done,” state Sen. Bret Allain (R-Jeanerette) said. “The whole process is a lot quicker than I envisioned it. You’ve really got to stay on top of this to stay involved.”

“The session is far from over,” state Sen. Norby Chabert (R-Houma) said entering the final hours of deliberation.

Chabert said the Senate replaced a budget shortfall with the use of rainy day funds and one-time money after the House implemented its Diamond Rule, which sets a cap for the use of one-time money in a budgetary cycle. This year the House took its Diamond Rule one step further and stripped the use of one-time financing all together. It was a decision they later surrendered.

“Trying to balance this budget is overwhelming,” Allain said. “It is one of the hugest challenges that the state has faced. I think it is a function of trying to prioritize what is important. You have so many constitutionally protected sacred cows that anytime we balance the budget we usually do it on the backs of higher education and health care, which have already taken huge cuts. ”

Coastal Concerns

“I think the session went fine,” state Rep. Gordon Dove (R-Houma) said.

Dove is chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. He said one accomplishment for Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parishes, as well as the remaining coastal parishes, was the constitutionally required reformation of the Department of Natural Resources.

“The way it was put into the Constitution, every five years we have to recreate the DNR,” Dove said. “There was no problem with that. We also got $24 million moved into priority-one money for Morganza to the Gulf and we got $20,000 in drainage money for upper Dularge.”

“We had a property transaction to allow the Lafourche Port Commission expand its facilities and to develop the west side of Bayou Lafourche,” added State Rep. Jerry “Truck” Gisclair.

Boundaries for oyster research were expanded on Grand Isle according to Gisclair. “It will expand the [LSU Oyster Research and Demonstration Farm] facility by 25.5 acres,” he said.

Alternative methods for researching and growing oysters was passed and signed by Jindal and a new law extends the brown shrimp season for scientific research and harvesting.

Combined with coastal concerns, Dove credited legislators for agreements reached in the settling of legacy lawsuits. “It allows oil companies to take responsibility for the environmental portion of the site only, clean it up and have that admissible in court,” he said. “The people suing oil companies can’t have an expert claim it is a $20 million cleanup when in fact it is a $2 million cleanup. It will help oil companies clean up these sites in a manner that is fair. It is good for the landowners with the goal to clean it up and be reasonable about it.”

Dove said that the legacy lawsuit agreement permits landowners to sue for restoration of property damaged and economic loss due to drilling activity, while allowing oil companies an opportunity to take environmental responsibility without having to admit liability for any damages not linked specifically to the companies involved.

An ultra-deep drilling bill, authored by Dove, and signed into law allows oil companies and investors to combine 9,000 acres of property on land or in Louisiana waters to drill below 22,000 feet. Previously the DNR was not permitted to accept a 9,000 acre drilling program.

Educational Establishment

While education reforms among public schools and higher education cuts of $25 million drew fire, Dove said other legislative activity benefited area colleges.

The legislator cited a local institution as being on the receiving end of funds.

“We got $4 million for Fletcher [Technical Community College] as a match to $4 million BP is putting into Fletcher to build an $8 million Deepwater Technology Science Institute,” Dove said.

“On the other hand we have institutions where we’ve cut back, not only to schools like Nicholls [State University] and LSU, but small schools like Fletcher [Technical Community College],” Dove said. “They have taken the bulk of the budget cuts this year.”

In terms of public school cuts, Dove said it is a matter of refining conditions which he expects will return for debate in 2013. “You take what you got and refine it,” he said. “Hopefully between the governor, the principals and the teachers we can find something and put legislation in that they can live with.”

Medical Matters

Following mid-year budget cuts in February, that eliminated the labor and delivery department and more than 100 jobs at Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center, the Tri-parish delegation pooled efforts to have the operational portions of that medical facility removed from the LSU Health Care System and established as a regional hospital run by a local board.

Opponents argued that employees at the designated charity hospital would lose their job security if it were made an independent regional facility.

“No one would be losing jobs,” Dove said. “I don’t know where that idea was coming from. Chabert would still be run by LSU, it just would be able to manage its own finances instead of having to share it with failing hospitals in the system.”

“We tried to do some out-of-the-box thinking in terms of local control,” Chabert said of the institution named after his father and opened in 1978. “The House didn’t see fit to do that.”

Chabert and Dove said that representatives of communities that have LSU-backed hospitals that represented a financial loss to the system blocked the Houma hospital from gaining operational autonomy.

Current rules in the LSU Health Care System do not allow member medical centers to keep any money they make above their individual budgets. Any profits made by hospitals like Chabert are kept by the system and shared among the seven member hospitals. Tri-parish delegates argued that this policy hampers the growth and development of strong facilities, including Chabert.

“They used the fact that their hospitals are struggling to defeat my bill which sought to protect one of the strongest hospitals in the system,” Chabert said. “But we’ve only begun to fight. You can look for us to bring a similar bill [to the 2013 session] that will be tighter and better.”

“When we did [mid-year] budget cuts we were handing pink slips to doctors and nurses, which is crazy,” Allain said. “We will be back.”

Session Summaries

“They are trying to rush a lot of last minute bills in,” Gisclair said of the final day’s activity. “We’re trying to slow that machine down. Some of the bills got defeated and we are being encouraged to bring them back up and into consideration. The session still is involved in stopping the governor from selling assets to take care of financial problems.”

“I don’t have a problem with using rainy day funds,” state Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (NP-Thibodaux) said regarding budget results. “I voted against the one-time motion in the budget and I’m going to try to stick to that. I believe the governor is [behind the pressure] to use the one-time funds.”

Richard was among legislators that contend rainy day funds are present for occasions when state finances are facing a rainy day such as a natural disaster. “The down side is if we use them this year we cannot use them next year,” he said. “Next year the budget will be worse if we use the one-time funds because one-time funds are monies we do not have in our hands.”

“We’ve cut the fat, but now we are down to cutting bone,” Allain said regarding the state budget. “I’m not for spending one-time money, but I’m not for damaging institutions to the point it will take them years and decades to recover. We can do better than that.”

Dove and state Rep. Sam Jones (D-Franklin) were the only two House members from the Tri-parish region who voted in favor of the state’s 2013 budget. Those in opposition included state Reps. Joe Harrison (R-Napoleonville), Lenar Whitney (R-Houma), Gisclair and Richard.

State Reps. Jones, Harrison, and Whitney along with state Sen. Troy Brown (D-Pancourtville) declined to comment on the session before its actual conclosion.