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Highway user and highway builder groups, local economic development officials, planners, interested citizens and state highway officials have been raising alarms and pressing for additional transportation funding for many years.
Lately, several public officials have pointed to a constitutional convention as the solution to the state’s budget woes. While constitutional revision is in order to correct some of the longstanding problems with state government, a full rewrite or even limited revision will do nothing to help balance the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Louisiana […]
2008 was supposed to be the “year of bricks and mortar” for recovery efforts in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as one local official described it. From Cameron, Louisiana, to Bayou La Batre, Alabama, officials talked of finally gaining some much-needed traction for rebuilding.
Gov. Bobby Jindal has vetoed more budgetary earmarks than any governor has in the past. After striking through $16 million of line-item amendments for legislators’ local projects, around $39 million in local earmarks was left in the operating budget.
For all the reform talk and promises made by the governor and legislators when they were candidates, the first regular session of this Legislature has closed with little in the way of substantial reform. The improvements that were made were overshadowed by the extravagant legislative pay raise members passed for themselves and the governor’s refusal […]
It seems the state’s capital outlay process will be getting a makeover this year. Several reform bills are moving through the Legislature. Each would make some long-called-for improvements to the process, but none can be called comprehensive reform.
If all you know about the capital outlay process is what you read in existing state laws, rules, and policies and procedures, you probably would conclude that in theory, it’s a good process.