LA BUDGET FORECASTING STALLED - The latest meeting of Louisiana’s income forecasting panel signaled a lack of cooperation between the conservative House Republican leaders who regularly clashed with Gov. John Bel Edwards during his first term-- again disrupting the Democratic governor’s budget plans as his second term is about to begin.
As reported by the Associated Press- during last Thursday’s Revenue Estimating Conference --conservatives in the Louisiana legislature refused to certify how much money is available for the upcoming fiscal year. This keeps the Edwards administration from accurately estimating how much to allocate in the 2020 /2021 budget proposal he’ll offer to lawmakers in February, and instead he’ll have to use older budget numbers adopted last April. That could hamstring the governor’s efforts to propose increased spending on early childhood education, K-12 teacher pay raises and for college campuses. The returning feud over state revenue projections served as a reminder that while Edwards is celebrating a reelection victory, the GOP leadership’s stalling an updated revenue estimate, underscores little cooperation for the time being and will force lawmakers to enter the next legislative session without knowing how much money they can spend.