Louisiana Legislature passes $28 billion budget -- a week late

The Louisiana Legislature finalized a $28 billion state budget and sent it to Gov. John Bel Edwards for his approval Friday (June 16), eight days after missing the regular session deadline. Edwards isn't expected to change the spending plan, leaving it as is to take effect July 1.

"It's a good budget. It's a conservative budget," said Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "The only winner here -- it's not the Senate or the House; it's the state."

The budget:

Fully funds the TOPS college scholarship program for the 2017-18 academic year
Gives colleges and universities more money than higher education has seen in a decade
Provides a pay raise to 38,000 state employees
Requires reductions to mental health services
Doesn't give as much money to charity hospitals, including University Medical Center, as they had requested
Calls for the Edwards administration to hold back spending $60 million, in case revenue projections later turn out to be too optimistic.

In an unusual move, the Senate voted 26-9 Friday to approve the exact same budget plan that the House narrowly approved on a 56-46 vote two days earlier. Often the Senate amends the House budget, forcing a conference committee between the two chambers to work out their differences. This time, Senate leaders wanted to avoid having to send the budget back to the House, where House leaders said they would try to whip up votes to reject it.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/06/louisiana_legislature_budget.html