Capitol Access

State lawmakers cheered the end of the 2013 legislative session Thursday.

WRKF’s Kelly Connelly has been following every twist and turn over the past 2 months. News Director Amy Jeffries spoke with Kelly about her time covering the session.

Lawmakers are going home having passed a bipartisan $24 billion state spending plan. 

But they're bringing home more than just the budget to their constituents. WRKF asked lawmakers about the most important thing they passed for their constituents.

In the final hours of the legislative session, lawmakers have passed a $25.4 billion budget compromise to finance the state for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The Senate approved the deal with a 38-1 vote. The House voted 104-0 Thursday and the deal has Gov. Bobby Jindal’s backing.

The budget includes a $69 million increase for local school districts and teachers sought by House Democrats. To address concerns of House Republicans, lawmakers cut down the use of one-time financing for recurring expenses. 

After lawmakers negotiated for days, Gov. Bobby Jindal was the first to call a press conference, at around 7 p.m. Wednesday, to announce the budget deal had been reached.

According to The Advocate, the conference was premature — many representatives had yet to talk to their delegations and the final papers had yet been signed.

The fate of next year’s budget rests in the hands of a few legislative leaders, picked by the chambers’ chairs to sort things out behind closed-doors.

This year is a little different than years past. 

First, the House changed some rules so that more voices could be at the table for the final negotiations. 

Monday lawmakers and lobbyists hustled across the rotunda that connects the chambers to assemble the votes to keep their bills alive, lest they fall victim to “Drop Dead Day” at the Capitol.

Sound ominous? 

The Senate has given the House a tough decision.

Senators rewrote the representatives’ version of the budget, re-allocating arguably unstable funds that the House had painstakingly removed. But it may be hard for representatives to vote against the budget. 

That’s because it sets aside $50 million for a one-time salary bonus for public school teachers.  

After yesterday’s committee approval, Senators will consider whether to try a new way to write the budget, which will more clearly designate what the legislature has the power to allocate.

They’ll also consider whether to try limiting the use of money that doesn’t come from taxes on expenses that occur annually.

The Senate Wednesday dashed the House’s hopes of eliminating from the state budget what some lawmakers consider to be unstable funding.

The fiscal hawks in the legislature would, for example, frown on paying utilities with proceeds from a garage sale.

So the House spent the first half of the session occupied with removing from the budget money that is only available once, like money from the sale of property and court settlements.

The Senate signed off on a measure yesterday that aims to restore funding to health care.

Sounds good right?

The opposition, including twenty-plus-year member of the legislature Senator Robert Adley, was quick to point out that approving the measure may back lawmakers into a corner with the budget.