Jindal’s budget won’t cut higher education
Gov. Bobby Jindal will propose to keep total funding to public colleges and universities at current levels in the proposed state operating budget that will be unveiled Thursday.
“There’s no cut. They’re fully funded,” the governor’s chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack, said Wednesday.
At least part of keeping the funding intact will include using dollars from tuition increases, he said.
The governor’s budget proposal launches a months-long debate on how state government should spend dollars in the fiscal year that begins July 1. The current state budget is $25 billion.
Complicating matters for the upcoming fiscal year is a projected $895 million shortfall.
Part of the state’s financial difficulties stems from using one-time money for recurring expenses in the current year’s operating budget. One-time money is revenue that will only materialize a single time.
Waguespack said Wednesday that $97 million in one-time money was used to fund higher education in the current spending year. He said that money will be replaced with a combination of student tuition increases and state general fund dollars.
He did not know exact funding figures.
The governor already proposed increasing the amount of money that state workers, including those in higher education, pay toward their retirements. The move would save the state money by decreasing the dollars the state contributes.
Waguespack said the governor wants to allow college campuses to keep the additional $100 million generated in higher education.
He said that money would be in addition to other funding the colleges and universities receive.
Ahead of Thursday’s state budget presentation, most legislators said they knew little about the governor’s proposal.
“No one’s talked to me about it. I don’t know where they’re at. I’m anxiously waiting,” said state Rep. Jim Morris, R-Oil City and a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
State Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater will present the proposed state spending plan to members of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
State Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro and the budget bill’s sponsor, said Wednesday that he got an overview of the proposal from the governor earlier in the week — but few specific details.
Fannin, who also serves as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he expects state government jobs to be eliminated and a further push toward privatization in the governor’s proposal.
He said he questions whether some of the plans already unveiled, such as using state dollars to move more public school students into private schools, will save as much money as projected.
“Sure, I’ve got concerns, because I don’t know how he gets there,” Fannin said.
State Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he also met with the governor. Donahue said he wants to keep the details of their conversation confidential.
“I was interested in seeing how the holes were being filled,” Donahue said.
A number of issues loom, including:
- Whether basic per-student state aid to public schools will remain largely frozen for a fourth year in a row.
- How heavily the governor will rely on savings achieved through proposals that must clear the Legislature.
- Whether public hospitals will continue to grapple with fewer state dollars.
- Whether the Jindal administration will move forward with hiring a private company to manage a state employee health insurance plan.
Faced with a $1.6 billion projected shortfall in the current state spending plan, the governor made some controversial proposals.
He wanted to sell state prisons and force state workers to put more of their paychecks toward retirement.
The prison sales died in a House committee. The retirement proposal ran out of gas when then-House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, declared it a tax that needed the approval of two thirds of the Louisiana Legislature.
With a new speaker presiding over the Louisiana House, Jindal is resurrecting his retirement proposal, suggesting that state employee contributions should be increased from 8 percent to 11 percent.