BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A more than $38 billion Louisiana state operating budget for next year flush with federal coronavirus aid won unanimous support Thursday from state senators, who didn't face the budget cut fights of prior years and instead got to divvy up an influx of pandemic-related cash.
The 2021-22 spending plan for the financial year that begins July 1 includes pay raises, education spending increases, payment boosts to foster parents and millions in legislative pet projects. But it didn't include new dollars sought for early learning programs and fell short of the teacher pay raise that lawmakers originally said they were planning.
With huge sums to spend and no cuts to haggle over, senators voted 38-0 for the operating budget with little discussion and no questions after it was presented by Finance Chairman Bodi White, the Baton Rouge-area Republican who handles the budget bills in the Senate.
“We had more resources this year. We all believe at the end of the day that we did the best we could with what we had,” said Republican Senate President Page Cortez.
Senators also passed a package of companion financing bills to make the budget balance and a more than $6 billion multiyear construction budget. The measures head back to the House. Legislative leaders from both chambers worked together on Senate adjustments, in hopes the House will agree to the Senate version of the spending plans days ahead of the June 10 end of session without additional backroom negotiations.
The operating budget would dole out pay raises to college faculty, prison guards, juvenile justice workers and other rank-and-file state employees. Public school teachers would get an $800 pay raise, while support workers such as bus drivers and cafeteria employees would see their salaries rise by $400. That's short of earlier talk of raises reaching $1,000 and $500.
“We didn't get there this year,” White said. He suggested lawmakers would consider another round of raises next year.
In other education increases, the TOPS program would fully cover tuition costs for all eligible college students. The separate need-based Go Grant aid program for college students would grow larger. New dollars would be set aside for a tuition aid program for community college students. And higher education programs would get millions of dollars in other specific line-item spending bumps.
Louisiana State University would be required to spend $4 million of its increase for campus lighting and security improvements amid a sexual misconduct scandal and complaints about the school's handling of safety issues.
Public defenders would receive a funding boost, as would the office that works on elderly affairs. Workers who help care for people in the Medicaid program who have disabilities and live in home- and community-based settings would receive payment hikes.
The state would spend $400 million on the first year of a multiyear debt owed to the federal government for upgrades made to the flood protection system across five parishes in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina.
Lawmakers also set aside millions of dollars for favored projects in their districts, such as money for fire and police agencies, local museums, parks, athletic facilities and more.
Louisiana’s tax collections are rebounding from the coronavirus outbreak. Lawmakers have a surplus from last year to spend, along with better-than-expected tax collections from this year and billions in federal cash.
The package of budget bills includes a spending plan for about $1.6 billion in federal coronavirus aid. The dollars would be split among a long list of programs and projects, including water system improvements, tourism marketing, hurricane recovery and grant programs for nonprofit agencies, ports, the logging industry and movie theater operators. About one-third of the cash, $563 million, would pay for road and bridge work. Another $490 million would be steered to the state’s nearly bankrupt unemployment trust fund.
Most of the spending priorities sought by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards were included.
The budget is balanced with at least $720 million in short-term cash that isn’t expected to be available in later years, including $600 million in enhanced federal Medicaid money available because of the pandemic.
Combined with other budget measures, the state would spend more than $43 billion on programs and services in the 2021-22 financial year. Spending on legislative and judicial operations, allocated through separate budget bills that already received final passage Thursday, would grow larger, and judges would get another year of a multiyear pay raise.
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