Northern state senator cites victories, losses in legislative session

25th July 2011   ·   1 Comment

By J. Kojo Livingston
Contributing Writer

Shreveport-based Senator Lydia guaranteed approval no teletrack payday loans Jackson spoke with the Black Press about the recent session of the State Senate. A number of items were passed that Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal has already vetoed. Most of these were items that would benefit the Black and low income population.

According to Jackson, “One of the most critical items for our area and for the entire is a veto of some $4 million for the LSU Medical School here in Shreveport. I’m really concerned about that because the medical school is the labor pool for the hospitals. If their budget is not adequate we could see a reduction in clinical services faculty positions and it is really an unnecessary veto.”

Jackson says that the medical school has a $4.7 million shortfall. The senate added the extra money because, unlike the medical school in New Orleans, Shreveport’s medical school has never gotten its fair share of state dollars. “That’s because our hospital is so productive that it contributes $25 to $28 million to fund the remainder of the medical school budget.” This year the hospital is not earning enough money to fully support the medical school. This year’s budget plans for the hospital to contribute $38 million to operate the medical school. Jackson says that’s a problem because, “The hospital is not going to have that kind of money this fiscal year because we are already $33 million behind in collecting payments from the fiscal year that just ended. I don’t think the governor’s office fully understood that this wasn’t extra money for the medical school. This was money that we needed to provide the current level of services,” she said.

One of the other items that Jindal vetoed was some $27 million in financial aid. The house had fully funded the TOPS program and there will be a constitutional amendment on the ballot in October to provide additional funding for the TOPS program. Jindal vetoed funds for Go Grant for program needy students. “It wasn’t going to hurt tops but the governor saw fit to veto even though Louisiana, with our high poverty rate, still spends less money on need-based aid than any other state in the country,” said Jackson.

The House made some drastic cuts in the Medicaid budget but Jackson says, “We were able can you use personal loans for anything to restore those funds. I particularly was concerned about cuts to places like Holy Angels and St. Mary’s that take care of our most delicate and fragile children with disabilities. We added money back into the bill for school-based health clinics and restored money for rehabilitative day treatment and other at-risk programs.”

The reversals were the result of citizen and department’s testimonies in the senate hearings, “After the house made the cuts it became crystal clear we were going to have some dire impact on services. We restored some $10 million to the Department of Children and Family Services. I think the governor saw it as much more humane than the one that left the house. This is the third year of sustained cuts,” said Jackson.

Another concern is the local school districts. “I’m concerned that we haven’t given any increase to our local school districts even though we haven’t cut the MFP. We’ve seen no increase in three years. With the cost of living increasing it’s a de facto cut. We’re seeing layoffs and across the state it going to have a tremendous impact because the cost of benefits keeps going up all of the cost of electricity even a fairly wealthy school district like Caddo is feeling the brunt of not adding money to the MFP.

Although Jindal refused to increase funding for public schools and tried to cut money for the local hospital, he did approve a new $5 million tax break for parents with children in private schools, further reducing the state’s pool of available monies.

Many are concerned about the direction the state is headed in under the current administration. However, Senator Lydia Jackson says that while there is a lot to be concerned about there was also some good news that came out of this session.

Explaining the cuts, Jackson said, “We have a smaller pool of money. We have over the past three years greatly reduced the state’s revenue base through tax cuts. We have a structural deficit that we’re going to have to come to grips with. The governor keeps saying no new taxes but if we don’t look at some new way for revenue or to reduce exemptions we’re going to continue to face these cuts certainly over personal loan calculator inr the next five years.”

Even with the severe cuts in this session, Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and the Republicans want to implement new tax breaks that Jackson and others say gives the state even less money to work with.

Jackson was asked to speculate at to what the governor hopes to accomplish by eliminating services, programs and support for education. “In his mind he is making the state more attractive for business fewer taxes but business also requires a certain level of government support. And we’ve got to provide a certain level of services to our citizens. We’re a very poor state and if we don’t make investments in higher education and k-12 education there is no reality of an improved economy without education.”

But Jackson insists that there is good news from the recent session. “Even though we’ve had sustained cuts to higher education and no growth money for k-12 education, which is a de facto cut, I was able to do something to mitigate the harm to higher education and in particular to HBCU’s. This year the governor has new performance standards and a new formula for distributing the funding for higher education. I was able to create a 2.2 million pool to supplement the schools that had more than a three percent change in their funding formula. That’s a little extra money, almost $1 million for the Southern system and $300,000 for Grambling that they would not have gotten otherwise under the current funding formula.”

Jackson says that’s not the only positive news for higher education, “We also added 500,000 for the intensive intervention center, the Honoré Center for Excellence at SUNO. The Black Caucus was able to stave off the governor’s merger plans but we all know that the status quo is not enough for our students. I thought that it was important that the state give the school some of the resources it needs to improve student achievement. I believe we’re going to be able to get another half million dollars to match this half million to make a one million dollar investment in the Honoré Center.”

For a poor state like Louisiana not making new investments in education and safety and health that’s never a win for citizens. I think radio rentals cash first loan we were able to stop the blood-letting and closing of additional mental health beds and rehabilitative services than if we adopted the budget as it came over from the House. The reality is that there is less money than it’s had in previous years. Cuts have been made in this budget. It will probably be awhile before citizens start seeing a change in services. We’ve just tried to mitigate the situation as best we could. The reality is there have been three years of sustained cuts in state government that translate into lowers of service.”

But the governor can’t make these cuts on his own, “The tax breaks are all bills introduced by various legislators,” says Jackson. “Some of them spur economic development. One thing we were able to do this time was make sure that any tax breaks included an audit provision that showed that there is economic benefit or at least not a cost to the state before the tax break can be granted.”

Jackson says that hope is not lost with the cut to the LSU Medical Center, “Unlike the other vetoes the money is still there.” The Board of Supervisors can still make the decision to use the money the ways the legislature intended. “The medical school and hospital are so important to this region. As we continue to cut back services in other areas of the state the hospital is a major provider for specialty care across the state. Four million dollars was not easy to come by in this budget. That the senate decided to make the investment in the med school shows how important everybody recognized the med school is to the entire state.”

Finally, Jackson cites the irony of some of the proposals offered during this fiscally lean period, “There was an amendment in the House that offered $5 million in additional money for the Ag Center at LSU. Farmers are important part of our economy, but if we can spend another $5 million on agriculture is seems that we can invest $4 million in the health and well being of our citizens.”

This article was originally published in the July 25, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper