One budget battle down; now here's Louisiana Legislature's next step

Gov. John Bel Edwards and state legislators ended the nine-day special session Wednesday by settling on a plan that solved a midyear budget deficit but left frayed nerves and satisfied no one.

Now the hard work begins.

Edwards and lawmakers are preparing for the start of the regular session in six weeks, when they must craft next year’s budget amidst a cross-current of conflicting and contradictory demands that could result in a grand solution that ends the state’s chronic budget deficits, another patchwork fix to muddle through the year or the type of budget standoff between the governor and lawmakers that has plagued Illinois, Kansas and several other states recently.

After nearly a decade of cuts in spending on state government, professors are leaving Louisiana’s colleges and public universities to take more attractive jobs elsewhere, some of the state’s technical and community college campuses are facing possible closure and the state’s roads are crumbling while traffic jams are worsening.

In the budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year that he released on Thursday, Edwards said a lack of funding is forcing him to fund the TOPS scholarships once again at only 70 percent of the full tuition cost. Lawmakers will have the final say, but no one can be certain whether they will make the necessary changes to restore the lost funding for TOPS or the many other programs facing more cuts.

Read more: http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legislature/article_2bfeb820-fb05-11e6-ae7a-6b9e7ca812cf.html