BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. John Bel Edwards says he'll "reserve final judgment" on the House version of next year's budget until he gets more details. But he already has concerns about the approach.
The Democratic governor said Monday he disagrees with breaking out the attorney general's office and putting it into a separate budget bill, treated differently than other agencies. He told the Press Club of Baton Rouge there's a "constitutional problem" with that approach.
Edwards also described it as a mistake to propose eliminating the state inspector general's office, which investigates fraud and corruption in government.
Those were changes made to next year's budget proposal by the House Appropriations Committee. The full House will consider the budget bills Thursday.
More broadly, Edwards questioned the approach of making across-the-board reductions to some agencies.