Since voters decided that in odd-numbered years legislators could only tackle fiscal issues – that is, those dealing with taxes, appropriations, and other financial matters – the balance of things has shifted. Unlike even-numbered sessions such as last year’s when thousands of bills were filed, this year brings a modest 1,129 bills as of press time. Representatives have brought 857 legislative instruments, and Senators have initiated 322.

But here’s the kicker: Even in “fiscal-only” years, each legislator can still file five non-fiscal bills. 

The race to encumber those bills is fierce, with special interests, constituents and others trying to lock down legislators early, seeking pledges to give a non-fiscal bill to this cause or that.

While money, money and money are the order of the day this year – particularly as Governor Bobby Jindal has declared a financial crisis requiring the trimming of billions from the state’s budget – there’s still plenty of non-fiscal drama to go around, with a good mix of fiscal matters leading the pack.

“Last year we were flush with money,” said Rep. Scott Simon (R-Abita Springs). “We had a whole new attitude. What a difference a year makes.”

Indeed, when the price of oil plummeted last year, tax revenue to the state’s coffers fell concomitantly. This was, to oversimplify, not good.

“The budget situation is as bad as I’ve seen it in my 10 years of being there,” said Sen. A.G. Crowe (R-Slidell), who served two terms in the House before being promoted to the Senate in 2007. “It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just the way it is.”

“Dollars and cents and distribution of the budget,” said Rep. Greg Cromer (R-Slidell), of this year’s legislative priorities. “And how do we change the governor’s ability to change the budget?”

That desire to change the governor’s latitude in budgeting is no anti-Jindal sentiment. On the contrary, virtually everyone agrees that the state’s Constitution is too binding on the governor – and the Legislature – in setting a fiscal agenda.

The state’s chief executive can currently cut up to five percent from a department budget, but efforts are afoot to increase the governor’s latitude to include a 10-percent cut. But Jindal has yet to wield that axe – or scalpel.

“He didn’t cut the five percent he’s allowed to out of all these funds,” said Sen. Jack Donahue (R-Mandeville) of the executive budget Jindal and his staff submitted to the House. Donahue said he’s anxious to see what plans the governor has for fiscal reductions and belt-tightening.

“That’s been the only serious attempt to address our deficit disorder,” said Crowe of the five-percent rule initiated several years ago. Crowe said he is firmly behind the effort to increase that latitude to 10 percent. “Until we have a tax code revision – not a full constitutional convention – and some collective effort to unravel all the mandated spending, we’ll always be subject to the whims of the state budget.”

Crowe said the effort to increase budget-cutting latitude to 10 percent would be a major step towards solvency and fiscal reform. But even if it passes this year, it will have to go to a statewide vote before becoming law.

“It won’t kick in this year,” Crowe said, “but it will give us more control over our destiny so we don’t have to cut healthcare and higher education all the time.”

“We’re broke,” Simon said. “It’s going to be a tough fight this go-round.”

Simon also said the state needs to look at seriously cutting its expenditures in a variety of areas.

“Despite Louisiana losing population, we’re growing in government spending,” he said. “We need to pull that back in. We need to cut across the board, evenly.”

Simon also said the constitutional mandates that tie lawmakers’ hands and leave them little option but to cut healthcare and education spending must be reviewed.

“We need to let everybody absorb the blow, not just education and healthcare,” Simon said. “Once Humpty-Dumpty falls off the wall, we’ve got to be able to put him together again.”

“They (healthcare) are suffering the most severe cuts, along with the education system,” Cromer said. “Appropriations has been meeting and hashing out the executive budget. I think we’ll see some significant changes in that budget once it gets to the House.”

“The situation is so bad primarily because of systemic issues,” Crowe said, referring to mandated spending that leaves healthcare and education vulnerable. “I’m recommending we shut off the light at the end of the tunnel to save electricity.”

Change, in fact, seems to be all the state has left in its pocket – at least the way folks are talking about Louisiana’s solvency.

“The thing to remember is the lesson of the 1980s,” said Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell). “We cannot tax our way to prosperity. On the contrary, we saw that cutting taxes increases government revenue.”

Among the local taxation issues virtually everyone is seeking to address is ad valorem, or property, taxes. Last year’s statewide reassessment led to a near-revolt among St. Tammany taxpayers, not dissimilar from the revolution in 2004 that got everyone exactly nowhere. But in ’09, the tide may be turning. Maybe.

“Our delegation has stood firm on property tax reform,” Donahue said of legislative efforts to restrict millage roll-forwards following reassessments, particularly by unelected boards and commissions.

Under current law, each assessor must reassess each property’s value every four years. Taxing bodies are then required to “roll back” their millage level – regardless of the original level approved by the voters – so the net “take” is equivalent to the previous year’s income plus normal growth. The trick is that those taxing bodies can then immediately “roll forward” the millage levels to what voters originally approved, or to any level in between.

Controversy erupted last year over appointed bodies whose members are not accountable to the electorate voting to roll millages in the upward direction. Outcry from citizens – and from many politicians – resulted in many of those bodies holding back and tax bills actually going down in some cases. But it was nothing permanent.

“We need to limit government’s ability to increase taxes, primarily among unelected boards,” Donahue said.

To that end, Donahue filed Senate Bill 37, which would restrict the ability of all taxing bodies to roll forward beyond a 2.5 percent increase in net revenue from the previous year. That would ensure no taxing body received more than a 10 percent increase in property-generated taxes over the four-year period between reassessments.

Pearson’s House Bill 252 takes another route to lowering taxes on most, while requiring all property-owners to pay a little. Currently the first $75,000 of a home’s value is exempt from taxation. Pearson’s bill would elevate that amount, so the first $10,000 would be taxable and the exemption would kick in at $10,001 dollars in value, extending upward to $85,000. Confused? In short, the bill would maintain the level of the Homestead Exemption – long considered a sacred cow in Louisiana politics – at $75,000, but lift the starting point so everyone would pay something.

“About half of properties in Louisiana are exempt,” Pearson said. “You see the results, particularly in rural parishes, with underfunded fire departments, sheriff’s offices, and school systems. This is not a bill about taxes; it’s a bill about education and public safety.”

Even in St. Tammany Parish, which has one of the highest millage rates in the state, someone taxed on only $10,000 of value would pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a year, depending on where the home is located.

“We’re going to see a lot of bills related to property taxes,” Donahue said. “The Homestead Exemption will be a big issue.”

Donahue said calls to increase the exemption to $100,000 or more would actually result in fewer people paying more taxes – not the reduction proponents claim. And as Pearson points out, raising the exemption could actually bankrupt smaller parishes, including some where as few as two dozen homeowners currently pay any property taxes at all.

“If you increase the Homestead Exemption from $75,000 to $100,000, most homeowners in St. Tammany Parish will pay more in property taxes,” Donahue said.

On the same platform, Cromer is handling a bill that will enhance requirements for taxing bodies to notify citizens when a millage roll-forward is being considered. Taxing authorities are already required to advertise their meetings, but can do so months in advance. And if they advertise a meeting which is then postponed for other reasons – such as happened when Hurricane Gustav disrupted normalcy last year – they don’t have to advertise again. Cromer’s bill will change that.

“If a meeting has been scheduled and advertised properly and is postponed for any reason, they’ll have to do it again,” Cromer said. “That will keep them from holding a meeting without the public becoming involved.”

In other fiscal matters, Cromer said he will oppose efforts to increase the cap on medical malpractice awards to $750,000 from its current level of $500,000.

“If that occurs, it’s going to drive up malpractice insurance costs to doctors, who will pass that on to patients,” he said. “Now is not the time to take actions with a waterfall effect that hit consumers in the pocket.”

To address another need in the medical community, Simon has filed House Bill 797, a measure that will expand membership in the Medical Education Commission and seek to match education offerings with healthcare needs.

“This will provide a quicker response to the needs of the industry and shorten the distance between high school and healthcare careers,” Simon said.

Crowe has a bill that will help students seeking vocational or technical education from a two-year college through the state’s TOPS program, which provides tuition waivers but too often steers students towards four-year universities. The measure is specifically backed by the Jindal administration and the state Workforce Commission.

“We have the jobs,” Crowe said. “We have the people who want to work. The best way to address building a skilled workforce is through vo-tech and two-year colleges. We have to seriously bolster and fund two-year and technical colleges. This (bill) could as much as quadruple enrollment in areas of need, whether nursing, welding, plumbing – all the areas where we have needs for skilled workers.”

Simon has also filed House Bill 365, which will require building designers to incorporate the principles of “Universal Design,” a concept that increases accessibility beyond the requirements of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“It builds a more usable world for everyone,” said Simon, who holds a master’s degree in architecture from Tulane University and who, as a paraplegic, is very familiar with the dynamics of building access. “It’s really just a mindset that goes into the design profession.”

Donahue’s Senate Bill 261, which he is carrying at the request of the Jindal Administration, will require a review of every executive department for efficiency.

“This would mandate we review every executive department with the idea of eliminating or consolidating or exploring privatization,” Donahue said. “Hopefully there will be some teeth in this one.”

“We have to do a complete, serious analysis of duplication of effort throughout the state government,” Crowe said. “We have so much waste, and I applaud the governor for looking inward instead of seeking more taxes from the people. We don’t have a taxing problem. We have a spending problem.”

Donahue has also filed a bill that establishes a tax credit for small businesses that provide healthcare for their employees.

“I don’t know if we can afford it this year, though,” he said. “The big thing is we want to get more people insured. It would be a win-win situation.”

Crowe has a bill pending that would provide a state tax credit for every dollar spent to buy insurance.

In the area of tax credits, Pearson has also filed House Bill 16, a step that would exempt full-time law enforcement and firefighters from state income tax on the first $32,000 they earn.

“Not only are these professionals underpaid but they also contribute significantly to our quality of life – a very major component of economic growth,” Pearson said.

The bill would cost the state about $16 million a year in lost revenue, which Pearson said is a drop in the bucket of Louisiana’s $30 billion-plus budget.

“Cutting taxes stimulates the economy,” Pearson said. “We know this. An effort last year to completely repeal the state income tax failed, so if we have to start by doing it (cutting taxes) piecemeal I’m ready to take the first step.”

The bills described here are but the tip of the iceberg, and legislators will be in session until late June, filing, amending, compromising and voting to make Louisiana solvent.

“I’ve been watching the Appropriations Committee hearings on a daily basis to be aware of where their concerns are with the budget,” Cromer said of meetings that started weeks before the Session’s official start-date of April 27.

“I’m looking forward to the session,” Simon said. “We’re facing adverse times, but adversity builds opportunity. We’ve been through this before and we’ve never really fixed the problems. We need to create a much better state for all of us.”