Originally published: . Volume 6, No. 5. Source pages: 1, 5.
Legislators Search for Ways to Fund Higher Ed/Healthcare Budget Crisis Draws Host of Bills
Responding with ideas to the $1.6 billion shortfall, legislators have come out with a host of bills to piece together a state budget during the crisis. The outlook is particularly gloomy for education and healthcare, but measures include efforts to change the state’s constitution to help lawmakers take some of the pressure off the two areas that are not protected from the chopping block. The patchwork quilt of bills put forward to both to help balance the budget include a number of measures to do away with tax credits. Examples are HB 366 by Representative Bryan Adams that would change refundable tax credits to nonrefundable credits. HB 563 would also reduce tax credits, HB 659 sunsets all tax credits, and HB 749 calls for a review of all tax credits. HB 629 reduces corporation tax credits. But most of these measures are pending. HB 766, also by Bryan Adams would allow educational institutions more autonomy over their operations and decisions. This measure moved out of committee on April 21 with a favorable vote of 15 to 1, but also was returned to the calendar.
Representative Adams’ office told the Times he is working around the clock, and consulting with the Board of Regents, to find compromises and ways to help higher education.
Bills that search out additional tax revenues are mostly pending in committees, perhaps because of the interconnected tapestry of nickels and dime saving efforts. Bills include HB 80 by Carmody that would funnel a certain portion of state sales and use taxes from out-of-state vendors to a fund from highways and education. HB 523 would use funds from Deepwater Horizon collection fund and dedicate it to higher education. HB 768 would dedicate part of the current personal property tax for education.
Some efforts to give the university systems more autonomy are doing a little better. HB168, authored by Rep. Steve Carter, authorizes higher education management boards to establish and modify, as they deem necessary, tuition and fees charged for graduate, professional, and other postbaccalaureate programs. It passed favorably out of committee, 11 to 0 and was scheduled for debate on April 30. But then the bill was returned to calendar.
Two bills to expand Medicaid and retrieve money from the federal system have stalled in committee. One such measure, HCR 3 was heard on April 29 and failed. Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert and Undersecretary Jeff Reynolds testified about how the department was planning to cope with the budget shortfalls and uncompensated costs of uninsured people served at hospitals. She noted that her group planned a “more flexible use of federal dollars” and “better integration of behavioral health services and public-private partnerships.”
The legislature has until June 11 to work out the billion plus shortfall, when it must adjourn by 6 pm.
Left: DHH Secretary Kathy Kliebert and Under- secretary Jeff Reynolds testify about Medicaid. Legislators scramble to find ways to cut and paste the state’s budget. Here, members of the film industry ask the lawmakers not to cut tax credits to their industry. At the center microphone is Michael Papajohn, an actor and stuntman, who tells how he was able to return to Louisiana from Hollywood due to the tax incentives. Papajohn played for the LSU Tigers baseball team coached by Coach Skip Bertman. In the movie Spiderman, Papajohn played the man who killed Uncle Ben. He told the Committee, “I’ve made over 30 movies, and died in most of them.”
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