As the year closes and with
Louisiana preparing to embark upon divided government for the first time in
several years (and a dozen since a governor of one party opposed a legislature
firmly in the hands of another), could the tumult in Illinois
and Pennsylvania
serve as a forecast for what may come with next year’s budget?
For half a year now, both of those
states, whose fiscal year begins like Louisiana’s on Jul. 1, have operated
without a budget. Pennsylvania’s Republican-led legislature just sent one to
its Democrat governor who item-vetoed a decent-sized chunk of it, while
Illinois’ legislature led by Democrats haven’t tried in the face of veto
threats from its Republican governor.
But it is unlikely that these
events will replicate in Louisiana starting this summer, largely because of
constitutional and legal differences among the three states. Pennsylvania
actually has measures legally
in place, as its Constitution
does not restrict the time limit of appropriations, to tide over the state in
such circumstances, as has commonly happened over the last decade. Nor does
Illinois have such a time restriction in its and it also allows
short-term borrowing to cover a portion of state expenditures. Keep in mind
as well that both have full-time legislatures who can work on this matter every
day while Louisiana like most states has only a part-time legislature that must
meet in extraordinary (special) or emergency (a stretch for this purpose)
session to deal with any unfinished (or unanticipated) business.
By contrast, Louisiana’s
Constitution allows no such slack. The state may spend only with appropriation
and these may last no longer than a year. Except for emergencies, where
it would take extremely creative argumentation to say a budget impasses
qualified as one, the state cannot borrow to fund
operating expenses. Even if officials could strain credulity in authorizing
emergency rule, that would take two-thirds legislative majorities
in any event to appropriate.
Of course, at the margins the state
possibly could still pay its bills after Jul. 1 without appropriation bills. If
agencies had reserves, they could spend them and try to claim they covered
expenses prior to the end of the previous fiscal year. Agencies that derive
substantial portions of revenues from self-generated funds could play a shell
game with those funds as well. The majoritarian branches also could engage in
gamesmanship by passing separate appropriations bills for funding government in
ways in which they agreed, despite the Constitution saying that the general
appropriations bill must address the ordinary operating expenses of government.
However, none of this would allow
state government to survive past the first payroll period, where around $250
million goes out the door, and, depending upon the vagaries of bond interest
payments and redemptions, hundreds of millions more dollars also would need
payment within a month. A piecemeal funding strategy could delay the
inevitable, but regardless there’s simply no way any such kind of standoff
could continue longer than a matter of weeks, and certainly not months all the
way into the new calendar year.
That means when the new Legislature
and governor get together next year, they have to get it together as far as the
budget goes. Unlike a few exceptional states, little margin for error exists in
operating state government unless they do.
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