News

Jindal restricts state borrowing under new law

by Patrick Flanagan

Gov. Bobby Jindal is trying to curb unintended consequences of a law that boosted the borrowing the state can do before hitting its debt ceiling.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. Bobby Jindal is trying to curb unintended consequences of a law that boosted the borrowing the state can do before hitting its debt ceiling.

Jindal issued an executive order Friday that prohibits new borrowing that would have been allowed solely because of the 2013 law. The order requires state debt to stay in the limit set before the law took effect.

The law was pushed by conservative lawmakers seeking to put limits on how state government spends money. It requires the state income forecasting panel to estimate how much money is available in set-aside funds that it didn't previously forecast.

But Louisiana's debt ceiling is calculated as a percentage off that forecast. Since more money was swept into the estimate, the state now has more room under the ceiling.