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Last Friday, LA’s “Roads Scholar” with must pomp and circumstance issued an Executive Order ( see here) freezing the salaries of all unclassified (non-Civil Service) state workers.

The order has the effect of prohibiting merit pay increases (not promotional increases) for the remainder of the current fiscal year and all of the next fiscal year which begins on July 1.

From a legal standpoint, the order does not appear to affect pay increases in the Judicial or Lege branches of state government.

High anxiety

The current state budget deficit is expected, but as yet unverified of between $200 Million and $400 Million. Despite all the media reports about the magnitude of the cuts that will have to be made in various state agencies, nobody has quantified the size of the impending deficit.

Rumors of these cuts are causing a lot of anxiety amongst the state agencies and especially in the colleges and universities.

The above mentioned Executive Order will help reduce the size of the current year’s deficit and thus reduce some of the anxiety.

However, how much savings the order will generate remains a mystery.  The “Crack Mullet Research Team” has been “efforting” to get an answer since Friday.  Apparently, the Jindal Administration doesn’t have one.

Quantification needed

The Executive Order freezing salaries is important gesture. However, before causing widespread panic in state government shouldn’t size of the fiscal problem the size be quantified?

Shouldn’t a solution to a fiscal problem be quantified before making an announcement?  Given the size of the payroll of the unclassifieds, it is possible, but not probable that the entire deficit could be erased by this one order.

If “The Scholar” used his alleged high I.Q. to provide more substance and less style in his governance of our state, the citizens would be better served.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

Fishing on I-20 in Northeast LA

It should be no surprise to anyone in Louisiana or anyone who has driven through our state that we have the worst roads in the nation.

That has been the case for years, but it was just confirmed again by a report from Reader’s Digest.

Why?

Some say the reason we have poor roads is because of the unusual soil conditions in our state. However, when I drive north on Interstate 55 and cross the state line into Mississippi there is a very noticeable difference on the Mississippi side of the highway.

My vehicle stops bumping along and the tires stop making unusual noises.  It is very smooth north of the Louisiana line.

There is no river or other natural boundary at that point between Louisiana’s side of the Interstate and the Mississippi side.  When God created the earth did he know that one day there would be placed an invisible line between two states and thus made the soil on each side of that line differently?

All states have unusual soil or other conditions.  They have mountains in some states that must be blasted out of the way or tunneled through.  In California and other states out West they are subject to earthquakes, which to date no highway system has ever been designed to avoid massive destruction.

LA’s problem

The problem with the roads in our state is clearly not unusual soil conditions. Nor is the problem with the roads a lack of money; the excuse we so often hear from politicians.

The road problems in our state are a result of a poor sense of priorities by our current and past governors and leges who determine how our tax dollars are spent.

There’s never been a better example of those poor priorities than this statement by then-State Representative and now-State Senator Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, on why he chose to spend $40 Million plus of our state tax dollars on digging a lake at Poverty Point in his district instead of fixing the roads:

“I decided [the lake] was the best thing I could do for my area,” more than roads or other projects usually sought by rural legislators, he said. “We could spend a lot of money trying to attract an industry that might pick up and leave, but a lake is not going anywhere.” Monroe News-Star, May 30, 2005.

Nuff said!

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am

Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, is a very successful, intelligent, Ivy League-educated, attorney. He has a most unique approach to problem-solving.

The Problem

Since being elected Abramson has complained publicly about the leges “hands being tied” by the state constitution when it comes to budgetary matters.

Abramson is, apparently, referring to the constitutional protection for the Minimum Foundation Program (“MFP”), the funding mechanism for elementary and secondary education.

In the current state budget of almost $29 Billion only approximately $3.9 Billion is protected by the constitution.  Of that roughly $3.3 Billion is the MFP.

The Solution

Abramson’s solution to the problem is to file HB 820. It is a proposed constitutional amendment that would constitutionally-protect funding for Higher Education (approximately $2.8 Billion) and Healthcare (approximately $7.7 Billion)  in our state.

Thus his solution would increase the amount of spending that is protected from budget cuts from $3.9 Billion to $14.4 Billion in a $24 Billion budget.

In other words, Abramson’s solution to the leges’ hands being is to get more rope and hog-tie them.

If he wants to truss up himself and his colleagues, it’s okay with me.

However, please Rep. Abramson, don’t complain to me about your being unable to move your hands, arms and legs.

C.B.

1 CB 8:00 am