State senators exhibit frustration over House’s proposed budget

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At the near halfway point of this year’s legislative session, a proposed state budget has some state senators riled up after it was passed by the Louisiana House of Representatives by a vote of 55-47.
“I will never vote for this budget,” Senate Finance Chair Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, told The Advocate Sunday during a discussion of the state spending plan that passed the House last week. “I’d be embarrassed.”
According to The Advocate, a big holdup in the Senate is “the House spending plan threatens nursing home care and home health care for nearly 46,000 elderly and disabled people.”
“We’re just going to kick them out? That’s unconscionable,” said Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge. “I cannot support this budget -- I will not support this budget.”
The remarks from senators like LaFleur and Barrow have many at the Capitol preparing for another special session which would begin at the close of this regular session. But, one senator has doubts about any special session. “I just don’t have a comfort level that much will be done in a special session,” said Senator Jim Fannin, a Jonesboro Republican who previously chaired the House Appropriations Committee.
The LSU Manship School News Service previously reported, “As the proposed budget now moves from the House, the Senate has not said if it will address it during the regular session. Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, has said he was not sure if legislators would be able to come to agreement and that he would rather debate the budget during a special session when raising more revenue is part of the mix.”
The Baton Rouge newspaper reported that another special session would be the “sixth since February 2016 -- all to address the state’s continuous cycle of budget crises.”
Besides cutting state funding to nursing homes and to home health agencies, the budget that the lower chamber passed would also cut TOPS by 20 percent and cut funding for hospitals and other medical services for the poor.
The originally authored House Bill would have funded 100 percent of TOPS, but an amendment was proposed by Representative Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, and chairman of the Republican delegation.
According to the report from the Manship School, the “amendment would fund TOPS at 80 percent instead of 100 percent of the projected cost and split the remaining money between higher education and state hospitals run by private partners.”
The report also pointed out that “state figures show that 20 percent of the TOPS money typically goes to students from families earning $150,000 or more.”
While Governor John Bel Edwards renewed his calls for a special session later this year and also his attacks on Speaker of the House Tayor Barras, he stated, “I’m going to work hard every single day to make sure that we are successful and the types of cuts that I just described to you don’t happen in the State of Louisiana. The sooner the better. The state is better than this. They deserve better than this.”