The budget reform movement gets down to serious business at 9 a.m. today when the Louisiana Legislature looks at measures to shore up the $24.7 billion state budget proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The House Ways and Means Committee has nearly 40 bills on its agenda, and many of them look at possible revenue sources to replace $490 million in one-time and contingency money removed from the budget last week.

Reform of the budget process was started by some 30 Republicans dubbed “Fiscal Hawks,” and the movement has now picked up support from Democrats and members of the Legislative Black Caucus.

The House Appropriations Committee removed the $490 million in an effort to send the spending bill (House Bill 1) over to the Senate. Like in preceding years, the goal was to have the upper chamber restore the funding by moving money around to make it easier to pass the budget.

More than two-thirds (70) of the House — members of the new budget coalition — rejected the plan, insisting budget writing needed to begin in their chamber as required by the state constitution.

Gov. Jindal and Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, have said they will give the House time to work on the budget. Alario said he needs more details before commenting, but made it clear the Senate still has a part to play in the process.

Reaction to the plan of the new House coalition was swift. Both the Tea Party of Louisiana and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry made it clear they think this is just a repeat of Jindal’s tax-raising ideas when his proposed elimination of state income taxes failed.

Dan Juneau, president of LABI, said the coalition’s plan to eliminate or reduce tax exemptions is a tax increase. His organization’s opposition to increased business taxes in Jindal’s plan was considered the fatal blow to elimination of income taxes.

“… Any time an individual or a business has money taken away through any change in the tax code, that is a tax increase, not an ‘adjustment’…,” Juneau said.

“Businesses are already struggling to absorb recent and soon-to-be implemented tax increases from the federal government. They will not look kindly on more coming from the state level,” Juneau said in his weekly column.

The Tea Party called on its members to descend on the state Capitol today to fight “$500 million in massive tax increases led by Democrats, the Black Caucus and so-called ‘Conservative Fiscal Hawk Republicans’!”

“What about cutting spending and reducing the size of the government to balance the budget just like we do in our household budgets?” the party said.

House Ways and Means also has HB 2 on its agenda, the capital construction bill that deals with projects across the state, and a gasoline tax measure. The gas tax would be increased annually based on the Consumer Price Index under provisions of the bill. The gasoline tax hasn’t been increased since 1990.

The full House this week will debate bills that would set up a procedure to return schools in the Recovery District to local school boards, raise clerk of court pay by 4 percent a year until fiscal year 2016-17, reform the budget process, set up hospital and medical assistance funds, regulate smoking outside state-owned buildings and change the process for raising college and university tuition.

The hospital fund is designed to levy an assessment on hospitals, use it to attract federal Medicaid dollars and return the funds to medical facilities caring for the uninsured.

The Louisiana Republican Party and Americans for Tax Reform oppose the system for recruiting federal matching dollars for the program that finances health care for poor and low-income residents.

“Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats of playing this shameless and indefensible racket, which is only increasing the rate at which Medicaid goes belly up…,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans For Tax Reform.

Increases in college tuition and fees currently need a two-thirds vote in the Legislature. The measures being debated would give that authority to the boards managing higher education institutions.

Rep. Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe, has pulled his bill that would have allowed optometrists to perform certain surgical procedures. It was opposed by state ophthalmologists.

A House committee last week killed a bill that would have required voters to approve traffic cameras. Local government officials said it was a matter of home rule and a decision they should be able to make.

The Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee today will also look at the tuition issue and legislation increasing the pay of parish tax assessors, also by 4 percent annually over a four-year period.

The full Senate this week will debate measures funding technical and community college construction projects, removing 70 as the mandatory retirement age for judges and a bill that would make it possible for anyone over 65 to freeze their property assessments.

Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, is sponsor of the $251 million construction bill. He has been criticized for bypassing the normal construction procedures, but defends the building needs for fast-growing community and technical colleges.      

Louisiana State Capital