GOP unforced LA budget errors leave room for mischief

While the parameters will become clear by the end of the day, the apparent compromise product for Louisiana’s operating budget represents a small defeat for conservatives in concessions on extra spending that perhaps did not have to be made and in the potential for bigger government down the road.

As previously noted, the conservative Republican faction that controlled the Senate, about a third of the House of Representatives, and had the backing of Gov. Bobby Jindal, largely could have dictated terms with the assistance of the non-conservative wing of the party (with a couple of other non-party members) in the House, the so-called “budget hawks” who comprised about another third, cutting Democrats out of the deal. Being that as a whole Republicans had a majority, that should have been the natural outcome, and it largely was.

The “hawks” came on board because the use of “one-time” money – a term that includes surplus recurring revenues dedicated for one purpose but which are used for another and nonrecurring monies from one-off transactions such as property sales – was limited and two bills, HB 437 and HB 620, were promised to be passed in addition to the budget in HB 1. They actually didn’t have much leverage over the former because the amount of that money fell under the total specified in the House rule that would have required a two-thirds vote. But there was trading going on with the legislation, because of the majority needed not just to pass a budget, but also because of the constitutional two-thirds vote requirement to take it up (and the other two bills) with less than three days to go in the session.

Democrat LA budget overreach can rescue GOP agenda

Perhaps on the brink of getting glorious something for absolutely nothing, if Republican legislators are smart Democrats may find they got themselves to pull defeat from the jaws of victory on the issue of Louisiana’s budget.

Yesterday, unanimously the House rejected Senate changes to the operating expense budget HB 1. These included adding back in from previous House receipt of the bill some “one-time” money, or a mix of recurring revenues that do not initially go to the general fund and nonrecurring monies from things like asset sales, spending more on higher education and on a educator salary bonus, and reducing cuts to government contracting and other ancillary services that otherwise might not be implementable.

This probably mostly pleased one of the three House factions, conservative Republicans, despite their misgivings over the increased size of government that resulted. That change they likely countenanced to satisfy Democrats, the chamber’s minority but made relevant in the debate because other Republicans, termed “fiscal hawks,” had broken with the leadership and initially proposed a combination of tax increases and cuts, reductions in the least valuable tax credits, and a semi-gimmick tax amnesty in order to wipe out any use of one-time money. Although each group represents about a third of the chamber, the “hawks” had leverage because of the House rule that forces the use of any one-time money past a certain growth factor, which produced a figure of $188 million this year, to be approved by a two-thirds vote.

Reform bill failure leaves inefficient LA higher education

The failure of state Sen. Conrad Appel’s SB 117 to become law invites another look into how financing of higher education in Louisiana occurs, the facts and myths surrounding it, and therefore how to proceed to reduce the inefficiency of the system while improving outcomes.

His bill would have created a commission to assign performance standards for schools, which subsequently would have been used to apportion state money to them on the basis of outcomes. In testimony, Appel said while the state lagged in support per student compared to southern state peers, the more important issue was performance and getting greater efficiency gains. Critics, and perhaps explaining why the measure failed, argued it was a lack of money in the system where its increase might get better performance.

However, the data largely validate the idea that higher education in Louisiana can be run more efficiently and does not suffer that much from lack of resources. Using the latest data available (2010), the state (of all of them plus the District of Columbia) ranks 18^th highest in per capita state appropriations, yet ranks close to the bottom both in degree completion (defined as those finished within six years) and in retention. But in total expenditures per capita, Louisiana is right in the middle, and ranked 32^nd in amount of spending per full-time equivalent student.

Jindal, allies can play winning budget hand

If you’re Gov. Bobby Jindal and his legislative budgetary allies, you call the bluff.

In the annual exercise of poker being played with real money called the state’s budget, the three-player environment that has surfaced in the Louisiana House of Representatives this year includes Jindal and conservatives who almost exclusively are Republicans, a faction of Republicans and a few others who term themselves “fiscal hawks” who have supported creating a slightly smaller budget of a mixture of tax increases, spending cuts, tax credit reductions, bonus funds in the form of a tax amnesty, and changes to the budget process connected to this year’s product, and Democrats who want higher spending and taxes. The Jindal crew has picked up an important ally in the Senate Republican majority, giving them a firm grip on two of the three legs comprising the lawmaking tripod.

This weekend, the HB 1 version (older one here) that came back from the Senate challenged the strange bedfellow alliance of the “hawks” and Democrats, in different ways. For the former, it pumped in “one-time money,” a mixture of money that includes nonrecurring revenues from things like property sales and recurring dollars that do not originate from the general fund, and decoupled the several tepid and one obnoxious reforms of them from passing as part of this upcoming year’s budget. For the latter, it included items liberals had complained about lack of inclusion such as a public elementary and secondary educators pay raise although in a one-off form, more money to higher education, the small tax increase on merchants, and generally bigger government. For the former, it contests their public oaths about the budget and images as reformers they have tried to carve, while for the latter it entices them to come aboard by giving them stuff they publicly have stated they support.

Senate grows LA govt to overcome dissident intransigence

Somewhat predictably, the Louisiana Senate threw back to the House of Representatives an operating budget designed to bludgeon the political clout of both the minority party Democrats and a faction of the majority party Republicans by making offers that can’t be refused nor can be resisted. Meanwhile, the fiscal system that produces this chaos remains the same and grows government.

The version of HB 1 that came from the House represented a significant departure from the version initially introduced by Gov. Bobby Jindal. Most dramatically, it removed large swaths of some kinds of “one-time money,” such as transfers of surplus money from dedicated funds and borrowing from dedicated funds of state-authorized entities, and replaced it with another kind, a tax amnesty program. It also made some minor across-the-board spending cuts, eliminated a small amount of wasteful tax credits, and hiked taxes somewhat on retailers by eliminating the state provision to pay for them acting as sales tax collectors for the state in a timely fashion.

It also came weighed down by a series of measures that the GOP faction, self-styled as “budget hawks” because they talk loudly about budget reform without ever actually addressing satisfactorily the issue for the most part, stumped to institute budget process reform at the margins. With one exception, these would be innocuous to helpful in defining the process.

Choice concept sound, but needs implementation fix

Spurred by events across north Louisiana, state education Superintendent John White wisely reduced to scope of an innovative education program for the upcoming year. But failure to understand why that had to become necessary risks cheating children and families in the future.

Last year, the Legislature as part of its bold reforms of public education introduced the Course Choice program that would allow students to take courses online instead of being limited to offerings in their schools. The state approved 42 providers, including from universities and other school districts, which would be allowed to solicit students; 23 received business. Once families had given permission to enroll their children in one or more of these, rules from the state Department of Education would allow their local districts to approve of the arrangements; if they did not act within a four-day window to do so, the registration would proceed.

However, controversy arose when in parishes across north Louisiana a number of families alleged their children had been signed up for courses without their consent, that signups were occurring from students not even in a district, and that districts were refusing to approve almost all to, in Bossier Parish, none of the enrollees. As a result of the confused state of affairs, White announced for the next school year the program would take on more a pilot status, with provider enrollment caps, than full-blown rollout, and the enrollment process would be rebooted. Also pertinent to this decision was the recent court ruling that the Minimum Foundation Program could not be used to fund this, so the cutback also responds to the short time frame to find dollars in a tight budgetary environment.

Legislature must curtail unfair cell provider advantage

Although Sen. David Vitter is a bit of a latecomer to the argument over government paying for people to use cell phones, his actions have revealed the extent of reform needs beyond what he and others have recommended that can be addressed by Louisiana.

Vitter has made headlines recently through criticizing the freewheeling subsidization of cell phone operation for individuals that qualify under a variety of government programs. The Lifeline program was started in 1984 to subsidize landline phone service for the purposes of ensuring contact was available for emergency purposes, contact with family and friends, and for assisting in contact for employment purposes. Modest in size until 2008, it has grown 15 times in since.

One reason was because the program was changed late in the Pres. George W. Bush Administration to allow for cell phones. This means the government pays basically for 250 minutes a month and 1,000 text messages, but the cell phone providers authorized in the program offer low priced-to-free phones and add-on options at very low rates that grant users access to the same features non-qualifiers may pay hundreds of dollars a month to get the same. And while the program prohibits households having more than one, many apparently use it as an additional phone to others they already contract for out of pocket.

Schools can help more despite parental payment neglect

School's out for the academic year, but there's a bit of homework still for the Caddo Parish School District and parents of school children everywhere. In a culture, reinforced by the prevailing ethos coming from the White House over the past four years, that keeps telling us others are to blame so that the poor choices we make that absolve us from responsibility for them, comes a specific example in controversy over the Caddo’s quasi-policy over responsibility for paying for schools meals that also suggests improvement on the part of the district.

This spring, a child at University Elementary found he had come up short in money for lunch, which costs $1.60. In response, his mother said the cafeteria “did not give him anything but two pieces of bread and a slice of cheese.” She then became further perturbed when she discovered there was no explicit policy for schools to give away food on credit, and found a sympathetic media outlet to publicize her grievance.

As it turns out, nine points of this episode dictates it ever got any attention only because of the fashionability of failure to take responsibility and thrusting onto something else. Even the parent admits it was her responsibility to keep the card, a program in which parents may enroll their children to pay for meals for any Caddo school, with sufficient funds, but then complained the school’s response wasn’t enough given the situation.

Memorial Day. 2013

This column publishes every Sunday through Thursday around noon U.S. Central Time (maybe even after sundown on busy days, or maybe before noon if things work out, or even sometimes on the weekend if there's big news) except whenever a significant national holiday falls on the Monday through Friday associated with the otherwise-usual publication on the previous day (unless it is Independence Day, Christmas, or New Year's Day when it is the day on which the holiday is observed by the U.S. government). In my opinion, there are six of these: Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, and New Year's Day.

With Monday, May 27 being Memorial Day, I invite you to explore this link.

Subterfuge amendments likely to cost LA taxpayers

While already noted has been the potentially noxious impact of HB 532, a companion measure HB 533 also would create problems that would rob Peter to pay Paul, fleece taxpayers, and leave the state vulnerable to legal penalties.

HB 532 would lay the groundwork to recreate a “sick tax” levied on those admitted into hospitals that indirectly would be passed on to consumers. But it also would eliminate flexibility in reimbursement rates paid by the state to hospitals by locking them and guaranteeing adjustment upwards by inflation rate, removing completely the idea of payment on the basis of market conditions. HB 533 would extend this to other providers where payment is made for nursing homes, pharmacies, intermediate care facilities, medical transporters, and managed care organizations with Medicaid contracts. Exceptions to the automatic adjustments could be made in times of budget deficit as long as all other providers are cut similarly.

Were these constitutional amendments offered by House Speaker Chuck Kleckley to pass, this could commit the state to paying excess taxpayer dollars to fund these special interests, if the market rate went below the rate being paid. Worse, it leaves out one set of providers that is different from all of these: those for home- and community-based waiver services. This means in times of budgetary stress only these rates could be cut, or they could be cut at least as much as the other shielded providers’. In essence, this also would decouple the rates being paid from market considerations, as these rates now would be held hostage to external factors created by the inability to cut other rates or would have to be cut in concert with the others regardless of the market conditions affecting them.