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Parish misses state budget slashes
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and a legislative joint budget committee have completed work to cut $341 million from the current state budget with Franklin Parish missing almost all of the accounting slashes.
"Franklin Parish will not see any affect," said state Rep. Noble Ellington of Winnsboro and a member of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
Ellingtion and state Senator Neil Riser of Columbia were active in the Baton Rouge meetings last week and reported their takes on the proceedings Monday.
"The governor did a good thing," Ellington said. "He cut about have of the $341 million but didn't cut across the board. He was selective and he asked the legislature to cut the other half.
"We did that this past week," Ellington said.
Ellington estimated that Franklin Parish will see a net loss of about $4,000.
"I think the exact figure is $3,700 in cuts that will apply to the Town of Winnsboro alone," the long-time cotton broker said.
He stressed that most of the Winnsboro cuts in funding would come in the area of tourism support and there, "are no capital outlay cuts for the town."
Ellington said one area which will see cuts that he finds displeasing is in specialty medical care. "There're some cuts in the area of autism that I hope we can go back to and fill in a few holes, financally." he said.
Ellington and Riser said the budget work was far from complete.
"Between now and February, we have to go back and start work on a $2 billion projected shortfall for the budget year 2009-10," Ellington said.
"Understanding the state's budget problems may be difficult," Ellington said.
He said the difficulty lies in that there are problems with three different fiscal years, all of which begin and end July 1 and June 30.
For the year 07-08 there is a surplus of state spending of $865 million dollars and for the year 08-09 there is a projected deficit of $341 million.
"But, it's not like a family budget where if you have more or less in any given year, you can make adjustments," Ellington said.
In surpluses, the state can only spend money in specific areas, such as debt retirement or retired employee funding, for example.
"So we can't go back and balance a budget that way," he said.
For the year 09-10, state officials are projecting the $2 billion shortfall of state funds. |
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