They took every penny they could find.
“The House efforts have solved 850-million of the one billion dollar problem,” Appropriations chairman Jim Fannin announced.
They even decided what to do with some money they’ve not yet found.
“This 31-million for the medical school in Shreveport would be put in a priority line if that funding is available,” Shreveport Rep. Thomas Carmody said, in support of Rep. Bubba Chaney’s amendment to HB 1.
It took six hours of debate, but he full House passed a 24-billion dollar budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, resolving over half the $1.6-billion dollar shortfall.
Of course, House members shifted some of the funding around within the bill, starting with taking $2.5 million out of the governor’s travel budget and giving it to State Police.
“This is so that every time the State Police moves for campaign travel with the governor, they will not do it out of their own budget,” Monroe Rep. Katrina Jackson said, speaking in favor of the amendment authored by Baton Rouge Rep. Ted James.
With word that the private operator of the state prison in Winn Parish is quitting in 6 months, House members voted to shift the funding for that facility to parish prisons. Rep. Steve Pylant, the former sheriff of Franklin Parish, authored that amendment.
“Let’s entrust the inmates back to the sheriffs, who constitutionally are declared to be the keeper of the jails,” Pylant argued, noting that locally-incarcerated state prisoners each cost the state ten dollars less per day.
There was an attempt to include the federal Medicaid expansion in the budget bill. Marksville Rep. Robert Johnson argued that it was time to put partisan differences aside.
“It’s not about voting for political parties, about donkeys or elephants,” Johnson exhorted the House. “It’s about voting for people — people who are working and in need.”
That amendment, authored by Amite Rep. John Bel Edwards, failed: 41 to 56. But an amendment to strip nearly $26-million from the Office of Public Health’s water treatment inspection program -- using it for a thousand disabilities waivers, clinics in New Orleans and a few other projects -- did pass.
Now the Senate will craft their response, attempting to resolve the $750-million remaining shortfall, while remaining within the governor’s edicts of no net increase in taxes. There are less than 3 weeks left in the session.