(The Center Square) — The Louisiana Legislature is moving ahead with a conference committee to resolve the budget following approvals in the House on Wednesday to increase the state’s spending cap and reject budget amendments from the Senate.
House members voted 85-19 to adopt Senate Concurrent Resolution 3 to raise the spending cap enshrined in the state constitution by $250 million for fiscal year 2022-23, and by $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2023-24.
The increased spending was amended down in the House Appropriations Committee on Monday from a Senate request for an additional $500 million and $1.8 million, respectively.
House members on Tuesday also voted unanimously to reject Senate amendments to the House budget sent to the upper chamber in early May, triggering a conference committee to resolve differences between the chambers. Lawmakers have until Thursday to finalize a budget or face an extraordinary session to settle on a spending plan before the fiscal year begins July 1. If that doesn’t happen, budget approval in the extraordinary session would require a vote of three-quarters of lawmakers in both chambers, complicating the dispute.
Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, offered a motion to suspend House rules to ensure more diverse House membership on the conference committee, but the motion was rejected with a vote of 80-24.
Other House votes on Tuesday included rejections of Senate changes to ancillary and capital outlay spending bills, and approval of Senate amendments to House Bill 636, dealing with legislative expenses.
The legislative conference committee on the budget will now have significantly more leeway to spend about $2.2 billion in excess and surplus funds Senate leaders and Gov. John Bel Edwards want to invest in teacher raises, increased spending for higher education and early learning, transportation projects, university buildings, hospitals and other priorities.
The House approved a budget in May that aimed to devote much of the excess and surplus funds to pay down unfunded accrued pension liabilities, which conservative Republicans argued would save about $200 million in interest schools could use to increase pay.
The House budget offered a more restrained approach to spending in an effort to avoid increasing the state’s spending cap, which doesn’t apply to certain debt payments or savings deposits. Opponents to increasing the spending cap cite the looming expiration of a temporary .45% tax that’s expected to reduce annual revenues by about $440 million, as well as the legislature’s history of overspending.
Proponents of increasing the cap contend using the surplus now on one-time expenses could save the state money on increasing construction costs and maintenance in the future.
A coalition of Louisiana organizations that include the Pelican Institute, Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the Louisiana Family Forum and several others have called on lawmakers to resist raising the expenditure cap to fully fund the Rainy Day fund and save toward revenue triggers in law to lower individual income and corporate taxes.
The fiscal restraint, the coalition argues, would help to spur growth and stem the state’s outmigration “to make a real difference for the future of Louisiana.”
“Our feeling is the budget cap is there for a reason … and the government should live within its means,” LABI President Jim Patterson told the House Appropriations Committee.
