Louisiana Voice

At a meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget during the legislative session earlier this year, House Speaker Jim Tucker popped in long enough to admonish fellow legislators (primarily state senators, it’s presumed) to “read the (state) Constitution.”

His remarks, however condescending they may or may not have been, were prompted by a running dispute he was having with Senate President Joel Chaisson in particular and the senate in general.

“Read the Constitution.” Terse, dramatic, patronizing. Exit left.

Now it turns out that Speaker Tucker might be advised to do some reading of his own.

Tucker, in a recent address in Monroe, blamed the Senate and Gov. Bobby Jindal for their failure to make deeper cuts in an attempt to mitigate next year’s anticipated $2 billion budgetary shortfall.

Speaking to the Monroe Chamber of Commerce on September 1, Tucker said of next year’s impending fiscal crisis, “We knew this was coming. We’ve been trying to manage this in the House for three years, but we were rebuffed by the Senate and the governor.

Tucker said the House had more significant cuts in the 2011 budget than the version ultimately approved after Jindal supported the Senate version, which, according to the House Speaker, used one-time money to postpone more severe cuts.

“So next year we’re going to deal with it as a crisis,” he said. “It’s not how I would have preferred to deal with it. I was disappointed, but we’ll deal with it as it comes.”

Perhaps Speaker Tucker should take his own advice and go back and read over HB 76 that passed the House by a vote of 88-0 and was signed by the governor as Act 41. HB 76, the ancillary appropriations bill, was the notorious bill that dumped some $33 million into local pork projects after additional funds were “found.”

Of that $33 million, Jindal managed to find 32 projects totaling less than $2.5 million that he could veto. Of the remaining $30 million-plus, $3.4 million was for local arts councils, $1.5 million was for local councils on aging, and another $12.8 million was appropriated for local parishes and municipalities, some of those with no explanation of how the money would be used. The City of Baton Rouge, for example, got two separate appropriations totaling $515,000 with no explanation of how the funds would be spent.

Of the appropriations for the councils on aging, $325,000 was for the Jefferson Council on Aging. Tucker is from Jefferson Parish.

The St. Landry School Board received $750,000 for “enhancements to public elementary and secondary education.”

The expenditures contained in HB 76, however, do not even approach the waste included in HB 1 (General Appropriations) and HB 2 (Capital Outlay).

Those two bills included, among other expenditures:

• $12 million for the Convention Center Complex in Shreveport;

• $6.1 million for the Baton Rouge Riverside Centroplex;

• $6.6 million for City Park Golf Complex in New Orleans;

• $6.12 million for golf course development in Westlake;

• $301,184 for Black Bear Golf Club at Poverty Point;

• $325,000 for promotion of the Audubon Golf Trail;

• $5,000 for the Delhi Municipal Golf Course;

• $200,000 for Junior Golf training facilities in Shreveport;

• $1.17 million for repairs to Zephyrs baseball facilities in Jefferson Parish;

• $17.5 million for professional sports facilities in Jefferson and Orleans parishes;

• $1 million for a recreational complex in Iberia Parish;

• $1.4 million for baseball stadium improvements in Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge has no baseball team.

Is this House Speaker Jim Tucker’s idea of fiscal responsibility?

Read the bill, Mr. Speaker. Read the bill.