It’s budget week in the House.
“We’re about to get real busy,” Legislative Fiscal Analyst Greg Albrecht says. with a chuckle.
Good thing he’s upbeat, because he’ll be kept jumping to crunch the numbers on every proposed change to HB 1.
What will those changes look like? Governor John Bel Edwards isn’t sure.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do. I know that there’s a lot of talk. I haven’t seen a real plan yet,” the governor told the press late last week.
“I have heard some legislators say that they want to wait and see what REC does because they believe that there will be some additional revenue. There is no reason to believe at present that the May 12th Revenue Estimating Conference is going to put enough additional revenue into the forecast.”
While the REC meets Thursday, that’s also when the full House is expected to debate and vote on the budget bill. Before that, the Appropriations Committee will make its changes. And they’re determined to fully fund TOPS.
“That committee and this Legislature certainly has the prerogative to move $183-million from other places and put it towards TOPS,” Governor Edwards said. “But you’re going to further expose other critical areas to deeper cuts when you do that.”
Appropriations chairman Cameron Henry has indicated deeper cuts to hospitals and education are indeed the plan. The idea is to “fully fund the front half of the fiscal year and wait to see whether more revenue is needed,” according to comments Henry made to Jeremy Alford of lapolitics.com.
The governor shook his head, when asked about that possible scenario.
“Come July first, we’re in a new fiscal year. The cuts are going to start.”
He was clearly taken aback by Henry’s attitude.
“We don’t do half year budgeting. It’s hard for me to imagine that a chairman of the Appropriations Committee would – and by the way, he hasn’t said that to me – but it’s hard for me to imagine that he really contemplates doing something like that.
“That would be the most irresponsible thing to do,” the Governor added, still shaking his head.