Louisiana Voice

            If the recently-concluded legislative session proved anything, it’s that lawmakers have little or no self-discipline when it comes to budgetary restraint in the face of overwhelming revenue shortfalls.

            Even as higher education was groping with ways to survive up to $310 million in cuts, legislators went on their annual spending binge. As if the $4.55 billion capital outlay budget crammed with local pork were not enough, legislators raided more than $140 million from the state emergency response fund, earmarking an additional $33 million for even more local projects in the ancillary budget, also identified as HB-76.

            The cuts to the Department of Health and Hospitals and higher education seemed not to matter a whit to some lawmakers. Rep. James Fannin (D-Jonesboro), defending the HB-76 pork, sniffed, “I don’t have an LSU in my district,” apparently forgetting for the moment that he most likely has quite a few constituents enrolled at LSU as well as LSU-Shreveport, Southern University-Shreveport, Northwestern State University, Louisiana Tech University, Grambling State University, or the University of Louisiana Monroe, all within an hour’s drive from his district.

            Not that LSU helped itself in the fiscal doom and gloom dialogue.

            Even as LSU System President John Lombardi was busy identifying $46 million in potential budget cuts, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved pay increases for two associate athletic directors. While faculty and support staff layoffs were being considered across campus, Senior Associate Athletic Director Verge Ausberry was awarded a 27 percent raise from $130,000 to $165,000. Fellow Senior Associate AD Mark Ewing, meanwhile, got a pay bump of 11 percent, from $155,000 to $172,000.

            Nor did Gov. Bobby Jindal attempt to stare down lawmakers, possibly out of concern of pushing the legislature into holding the first-ever veto session. He managed to veto 32 projects in HB-76 totaling only $2 million, leaving $31 million intact, and only eight projects totaling $20.1 million of the capital outlay bill (HB-2), trimming those expenditures all the way to $4.35 billion.

            For a year or more now, the media have trumpeted impending fiscal disaster as revenue shortfalls devastated agency budgets across the board. Yet lawmakers, seemingly oblivious to it all, continued to plow local projects into a budget already strained to the breaking point. If any of the 144 legislators were worried, no one appeared to exhibit concern. So eager to bring money back home were legislators that a $100,000 appropriation for Centenary College in Shreveport, a private Methodist school, was approved.

            Among the projects legislators poured into the Supplemental Appropriations Bill (HB-76) and the Capital Outlay Bill (HB-2) were:

• Nearly $1.5 million on 50 parish councils on aging;
• More than $29 million for municipalities and parishes for unspecified purposes;
• $43.7 million in arts programs statewide;
• $600,000 for an animal shelters in St. Charles and Livingston parishes;
• $6.9 million for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches;
• $18.7 million for professional sports facilities in Jefferson and Orleans parishes;
• $12.7 million for golf complex facilities in Orleans and Calcasieu parishes;
• $9.37 million in ground water reservoirs;
• $7.5 million in local sewer system projects;
• $19.9 million in local courthouse construction projects;
• $17.1 million for Bayou Segnette Festival Park and Sports Complex improvements;
• $18.5 million for recreational improvements in Jefferson, Vernon, Tangipahoa, Orleans, East Baton Rouge, and Iberia parishes;
• $3.8 million for an activity center in Morehouse Parish;
• $3.5 million for land acquisition in St. James Parish;
• $4.6 million for renovations to the Baton Rouge River Center;
• $1.4 million for baseball stadium improvements in Baton Rouge;
• $1.17 million for renovations to the Zephyrs baseball facilities in Jefferson Parish;
• $3.5 million for museums throughout the state;
• $2 million for a farmers and fisheries market in Jefferson Parish;
• $11 million for the Audubon 2000 renovations;
• $3.8 million for tennis center improvements at New Orleans City Park;
• $26.5 million for the National World War II Museum;
• $400,000 for a bike trail in Orleans Parish;
• $1.7 million for the Little Theatre of Shreveport;
• $1.1 million for the Louisiana Military Hall of Fame & Museum in Houma;
• $1.8 million for a multi-purpose vocational center and shelter in Tangipahoa Parish;
• $2.6 million for the Algiers Development District;
• $2 million for the New Orleans Music Hall of Fame;
• $2.4 million for YMCA facilities in Orleans and East Baton Rouge parishes;
• $2.3 million for multi-purpose facilities in Franklin and East Baton Rouge parishes;
• $5.4 million for the Forts Randolph and Buhlow Historic Site;

            Several million in additional funding was approved for local fire districts, police departments, municipal buildings, and sheriffs’ offices, bringing the cost of local pork projects to more than half-a-billion dollars, easily surpassing the $310 million in budget reductions to higher education.

            In the wake of such a bleak financial future currently being faced by the state, the obvious question is who would vote for such reckless spending? Try 86 of 105 House members and 35 of 39 Senators on HB-2. On HB-76 (the Supplemental Spending Bill), the count was 88 House members in favor and 37 Senators. In fact, it would be easier to name those who voted against the bills. Those figures are seven nays in the house for HB-2 and zero in the Senate. Zero was also the number of votes against HB-76 in both chambers though there were some notable absentees.

            House members voting against HB-2 were Jerry Gisclair of LaRose, Juan LaFonta of New Orleans, Rogers Pope of Denham Springs, Clifton Richardson of Baton Rouge, John Schroder of Abita Springs, M.S. “Mert” Smiley of Port Vincent, Mack “Bodi” White of Denham Springs.

            Absent House members or those not voting included Elton Aubert of Vacherie, Jared Brossett of New Orleans, Timothy Burns of Mandeville, Billy Chandler of Dry Prong, Gordon Dove of Houma, James Fannin of Jonesboro, A.B. Franklin of Lake Charles, John LaBruzzo of Metairie, Joseph Lopinto of Metairie, Rickey Nowlin of Natchitoches, Joel Robideaux of Lafayette and Karen St. Germain of Plaquemine.

            Senate members who apparently were too busy to vote on the second biggest spending bill on the final day of the session included Jack Donahue of Mandeville, Dale Erdy of Livingston, Robert Kostelka of Monroe and Jean-Paul Morrell of New Orleans.

            House absentees on the vote on HB-76 were James Armes of Leesville, Dove, Noble Ellington of Winnsboro, Rickey Hardy of Lafayette, Lowell Hazel of Pineville, Nita Rusich Hutter of Chalmette, Charles “Chuck” Kleckley of Lake Charles, LaBruzzo, H. Bernard LeBas of Ville Platte, Nickie Monica of LaPlace, J. Kevin Pearson of Slidell, Erich Ponti of Baton Rouge, Gary Smith of Norco, Ricky Templet of Gretna, and Ernest Wooton of Belle Chasse.

            Only two senators did not vote up or down on HB-76. They were Daniel Martiny of Metairie and Joe McPherson of Woodworth.