Rep. Johnson says special session achieved goal, but more tough choices face legislators

The recent Louisiana State Legislative special session achieved its goal -- to balance the budget until July 1 -- but the Legislature still has a tough job ahead when the regular session convenes on April 10, state Rep. Robert Johnson said.

Legislators reached a compromise on the last day of the special session to deal with a $308 million deficit to balance the 2016-17 budget, using $99 million from the state’s “Rainy Day Fund,” and over $200 million in budget cuts.

While budget knives were slashing left and right, Avoyelles Parish fared well, Johnson said.

The Marksville Democrat was especially grateful that the parish was spared significant cuts in the Department of Corrections budget. Statewide, there are 100 jobs in the DOC that will go unfilled due to the state’s budget woes. However, Raymond Laborde Correctional Center (RRLC) had only a few of those.

“RRLC came out very well with very few cuts,” Johnson said. “There were even talks of early-releasing inmates across the state to save money. That didn’t happen, which was a good thing for RRLC.”

There was no “good news” for the parish’s other state detention facility, but there was no death knell, either.

Construction of the Acadian Center for Youth in Bunkie has been completed, but the Office of Juvenile Justice has not been allocated the funds necessary to hire and train staff, open and operate the state-of-the-art juvenile rehabilitation center. Johnson hopes the state will find the money to open and operate the facility.

He said he has been told the center could open on a scaled-back version of itself for as little as $6-8 million during the 2017-18 budget year, but would take $14 million to be fully-funded.

Under that scenario, the $6-8 million not funded in the first year would be added to the $14 million operating budget the next year, allowing the center to “catch up” in its second year of operation.

One of the most important actions adopted in the special session was House Concurrent Resolution 1, Johnson said.

HCR 1 directed the state treasurer to implement a process to allocate state deposits from constitutional and statutory dedications.

“The money would flow through the Bond Security and Redemption Fund for the purpose of paying debt service beginning in Fiscal Year 2017-18,” Johnson said. About $96 million could be raised in the 2017-18 budget year, which begins July 1, he added.

Another major piece of legislation was Senate Concurrent Resolution 2, which made $99 million available from the “Rainy Day Fund” to offset this year’s remaining budget deficit.

Johnson was disappointed that HCR 2 failed, which would have used $119 million of Rainy Day money instead of $99 million.

“We had budget cuts in 2007 and especially in 2008, that led to revenue shortfalls,” Johnson said. “There have been 15 mid-year cuts to the budget since 2007.”

He said the upcoming regular session in April could be “tough" because everyone wants budget reform, including tax reform.

“The tax system hits the poorest of this state the hardest,” Johnson noted. “People making $17,000 and under, which is 20 percent of the population, pay 10 percent of their income in state income taxes.”

Johnson said the top 1 percent, making over $470,000 a year, pays 4.2 percent in state income tax.

The lower-income residents are also less able to save any of their earnings, which means a larger percentage of their total income is spent. This fuels the local economies and supports state and local governments by paying state and local sales taxes.