Lawmakers are hoping to knock out a balanced budget for the next fiscal year before the regular session ends June 1st despite a billion-dollar projected deficit, but House Appropriations Chairman Jerome Zeringue says the unfortunate reality of a billion-dollar deficit is that they may have to make some deep cuts.
“Unfortunately the primary cuts have to come to higher education and healthcare so we are doing everything that we can to minimize that. We are looking at rainy day funds, debt defeasance, and other things that we could possibly do,” says Zeringue.
A balanced budget must be passed by the start of the next fiscal year, July 1st. The committee is now awaiting a budget proposal from the Governor.
Zeringue says crafting that budget is difficult because right now we don’t know how much federal aid the state will get, or how we can use it.
“We are just assuming that we are not for the most part or that there will be marginal influence and then addressing from there and then if it ultimately comes through it will just help out long term,” says Zeringue.
Louisiana received 1.8 billion in COVID-19 response funding from the feds with the requirement that it only be spent on direct response to the pandemic. Senator John Kennedy is pushing legislation that would relax those requirements.
Zeringue says there are 50-50 odds that the budget debate will require a June special session, and if one did occur it would be because the session was delayed in starting until this month.
Governor Edwards has indicated that any budget passed this session for the next fiscal year will likely need to be revised in October.
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