We already know that in the next eighteen months, there is a $2.65 billion budget hole to fill. So how is the incoming administration planning to deal with it?
“I don’t have those answers today,” says soon-to-be Commissioner of Administration, Jay Dardenne, but they’re looking at the problem from every angle.
“Our goal is to continue to make appropriate reductions in government, to stabilize the budget and to ask the Legislature and the people of Louisiana to help us find solutions that will generate a fair and equitable revenue stream to move Louisiana forward,” he says.
Asked if a reversal of the Stelly Plan tax bracket repeals was being considered, Dardenne says “all the options are on the table for everything.”
Louisiana’s tax brackets are currently two, four and six percent. Before lawmakers statutorily changed the constitutional amendment in 2008, personal income was taxed at two, four, six and eight percent.
With a $750-million shortage between now and June 30, Dardenne says raising revenue isn’t even a sure solution. “The reality is," he says, "whenever you would do anything by way of a revenue-raising measure, there’s going to be a delay in receiving those dollars.”
Because there’s no way to generate enough revenue to fix the current budget hole in time, the only available fix is cuts. Though the situation is bleak, it does force a complete re-thinking of Louisiana’s state budget. “I think we have an opportunity as a state now to confront these problems head on in a way that we haven’t done before. Now, I think, is the time. And this governor is committed to making this the time that we deal with these problems in a way that’s going to reshape Louisiana’s future,” says Dardenne.