BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As they dug into the details of Louisiana's latest budget problems, state senators were warned Thursday that the news could get bleaker still, with the state's monthly financial reports offering little room for optimism.
Legislative economist Greg Albrecht told the Senate Finance Committee the state economy has continued to weaken, employment rates are down, oil prices have dropped and the state is paying out more in tax refunds to businesses than it is receiving in corporate taxes.
"The economy's been weakening for a year, and oil's done us in," Albrecht told the Finance Committee, newly configured with the start of the latest four-year terms of office.
Albrecht's summary: "It's almost all minus signs."
New Finance Chairman Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, quipped in response: "I would love you to come to my children's next pep rally. You're quite the motivational speaker."
The state budget gap is estimated to have reached $700 million, possibly more, with only five months remaining in the fiscal year to rebalance the spending plans.
Senators didn't talk much about possible solutions, though Gov. John Bel Edwards is asking lawmakers to raise taxes in a mid-February special session to avoid deep cuts to public colleges and health care services.
Edwards' chief financial adviser, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, told the committee the administration would not try to sugarcoat the budget woes.
"We're in for a tough ride here," Dardenne said.
Senators spent part of their time taking a few digs at former Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration, without naming the ex-governor directly but suggesting they didn't get accurate information about the depth of the state's financial gaps from his administration.
Sen. Jim Fannin, R-Jonesboro, chairman of the House budget committee before his fall election to the Senate, said health department officials assured lawmakers in June the Medicaid budget was balanced, only to hear the program is short of cash a few months later.
"The numbers are not the same," Fannin said. "It's shocking to me."
LaFleur, who was a member of the Finance Committee during Jindal's tenure, replied: "I've accepted a lot of numbers over the last four or five years that didn't gel."
The Jindal administration patched together budgets with short-term fixes, such as property sales, assumptions of savings from efficiency initiatives and raided savings accounts. Lawmakers went along with most of the piecemeal financing. As the dollars fell away or savings didn't pan out as projected, new budget gaps appeared.
Dardenne said $800 million in short-term financing was used to balance this year's budget, money that won't be available next year, worsening financial gaps for the fiscal year that begins July 1. He said it was clear lawmakers didn't always receive answers that were "in line with the truth," and he pledged a different approach from the Edwards administration.
LaFleur said lawmakers shared culpability for the budget problems.
"We're probably just as much to blame for why we're here today," he said. "We may have offered some critiques and some criticisms, but we went along with it anyway."