Supreme Court won’t enjoin Jindal’s voucher scheme

Echoing a district court ruling, the Louisiana Supreme Court today denied a request for an injunction to halt funding for Governor Bobby Jindal’s controversial school voucher plan. A trial to determine the constitutionality of the voucher scheme will proceed as scheduled on October 15, however.

The Supreme Court affirmed District Judge Tim Kelly’s decision that the judiciary cannot enjoin the voucher program because Superintendent of Education John White and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater signed affidavits claiming that an injunction would create a deficit in the state budget.
“Even though we contend that their statements are demonstrably false – there is no way that not spending money can cause a deficit – the courts must accept the affidavits as factual and cannot challenge them in any way,” said Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan. “Judge Kelly was very clear when he told us the law does not allow him to question the truthfulness of the statements by White and Rainwater.”

The Louisiana Federation of Teachers and others have sued the state on grounds that Act 2 of 2012, which established the voucher program, violates the state constitution for at least two reasons, and did not pass the legislature by the required number of votes.

Today’s ruling has no bearing on the legitimacy of the challenge or the ultimate outcome of the case. The LFT had sought the injunction to spare the confusion that will come if the law is declared unconstitutional while students are already attending voucher schools.

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Jindal called on fake "efficiencies"

When Gov. Bobby Jindal announced his budget plans last March, lawmakers immediately noticed what one senator called the "imaginary dollars" that plugged holes in the spending plan.

They were less skeptical at the time about the proposed savings, or "funding efficiencies" that Jindal's advisers said would reduce the anticipated shortfall by some $225 million. After all, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater and his assistant, Ray Stockstill, told the joint legislative budget committee that the savings were indeed available, and that they would provide a list.

But as Advocate Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Ballard reports here, after all these weeks, and after numerous requests, the list has yet to appear. Writes Ballard:

It’s gone on so long that Jindal’s inability to deliver The List has become a
punch line among legislators, roughly synonymous with “when pigs fly.” It’s
always good for a chuckle, when delivered while waiting in line for lunch or
talking about Baton Rouge traffic.

Lawmakers might joke about the missing list, but it's a nervous laugh. It will take real money, and a real willingness to face the state's fiscal crisis, to write a budget that will provide state services as well as meet the constitutional standard of balance. In the waning weeks of this fiscal session, both are in very short supply.

Jindal to Louisiana: Stop whining!

On Friday morning, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater told the legislature's Joint Budget Committee that there was no decision yet on what must be cut to offset a $108 million budget shortfall that must be balanced by June 30.

Not long after, while the committee meeting was still in progress, Gov. Bobby Jindal called a press conference to lay out the cuts his administration expects from state agencies. Higher education and health care will bear the brunt of the new cuts.

Lawmakers were predictably upset over what they saw as the administration's calculated deception over the cuts, as Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon wrote here.

Even worse was the governor's cavalier attitude about the state's budget crisis. "We don't need whining," he said, "we do need leadership." Then our leader flew off to yet another state to raise funds for yet another Republican candidate.

What effect will the cuts have? Reporter Jordan Blum documents the approximately $35 million to higher education in this story. More details about LSU's loss are reported by Blum here.

And in this press release from the Department of Education, some $6.3 million in cuts to K-12 are laid out.

Double whammy hits state budget

Much more bad budget news. Two separate reports this week make up a possible $300 million double whammy for the cash-strapped state budget.

First, state officials learned this week that the last fiscal year ended with a constitutionally prohibited $108 million deficit. That means the administration of Gov.Bobby Jindal must cut this year's budget to balance the books.

In this story by Times-Picayune reporter Jan Moller, Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater says that corporate income tax returns are lower than anticipated. Rainwater says he is meeting with heads of state agencies to decide what can be cut by the end of this fiscal year next June.

Second slap: According to this story by Advocate reporter Michelle Millhollon, a recently filed lawsuit may force the state to trim nearly $200 million more from this year's budget.

Rainwater says that in the next two weeks he'll give agency heads marching orders on the cuts that may come about if the state loses the lawsuit.

That suit, filed by former State Rep. Ron Gomez, challenges the state's use of "rainy day funds" to plug the budget gap in the current budget. If the suit succeeds, it will create a $198 million hole in the state budget.

Devastating budget news

Governor Jindal's new commissioner of administration, Paul Rainwater, dropped a bombshell today when he told AP reporter Melinda Deslatte that he's ordering all state departments to plan for a 35% budget cut next year.

Rainwater said he's anticipating a $2 billion drop in revenues. While it may not actually come to that, he said, he wants to be ready if that worst-case scenario plays out.

Not surprisingly, Rainwater is holding fast to Governor Jindal's reckless "no taxes" pledge. Apparently, this administration would rather turn out the lights and lock the doors of state government than jeopardize Jindal's credentials with the conservative budget hawks he's courting on the national political stage.

That the administration would even consider a 35% budget cut is disturbing. But doing so in the full knowledge that there are over 440 tax loopholes out there, and that trimming just some of them could avert disaster, is truly mind boggling.

Note that we're not talking about new taxes here - we're talking about collecting taxes that are on the books but have been exempted by lawmakers.

The only other alternative the governor seems willing to consider is raiding the state's statutorily protected funds. That would require the same two-thirds vote of the legislature as repealing some of the tax exemptions.

Next year's legislative session is shaping up to be perhaps the most painful on record, for the governor, for legislators and, most importantly, for the people of Louisiana.