Article archive / June 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 10. Source pages: 6.
Senate puts back “one-time-money”
The Louisiana Senate advanced the state budget, HB 1, on Thursday night, May 31, in a 39 to 0 vote. This was after the Senate Finance Committee added back the approximately $300 million of “one-time-money” that had been removed by the House.
In an earlier committee meeting the state Treasurer explained that if this one-time money was not restored to the budget, services would be dramatically cut. And these cuts would come from healthcare and higher education.
Because of the structure of the state finances, legislators are not allowed to touch $20 billion of the $25-26 billion state budget. This pushes the cuts to healthcare and higher education.
Governor Jindal had urged the Senate Finance Committee to return the money to the budget, according to an Advocate news blog.
In a Times–Picayune article on May 25, by Jeff Adelson, Senator Norbert Chabert, Vice-Chair of the Senate Finance, said that the committee needed to take steps so that the budget doesn’t “decimate services throughout the state.”
The report also noted that Chabert said in the Legislature will need to make changes in how the process is handled, to avoid a regular crisis. The report clarified that because of the budget structure and restrictions, “unprotected areas of health care and higher education take large hits whenever the state needs to trim spending.”
In an article by Mike Haster in the Alexandria Town Talk, Secretary Department of Health and Hospitals, Bruce Greenstein had predicted that cutting the $267.7 million would impact critical services. Kathy Kliebert, Assistant Secretary said the DHH budget was already “stretched to its limit of elasticity.”
The report noted that Kliebert said “there would no longer be psychological services” in Central Louisiana. She was quoted to say, “These patients are not going to evaporate. They’re going to migrate to more expensive methods of treatment.”
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