Strings attached? Jindal, legislature to decide if state will accept stimulus
09:36 PM CST on Monday, February 16, 2009
Paul Murphy / Eyewitness News
BATON ROUGE, La. – You would think with Louisiana staring at a possible $2 billion budget shortfall next year, Governor Bobby Jindal would anxious to get a hold of the state's nearly $4 billion cut of the federal stimulus package.
"We'll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it's beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars," Jindal said at a recent gathering in Jefferson Parish.
State House Speaker Jim Tucker says the governor is just being cautious, not playing politics.
"The fear is that it requires the state to continue a program, once the federal program has stopped," said Tucker, R-Terrytown. "If that's the case we have to look and say first, is this a program we've been doing or we want to do, and secondly is this a program we can assure we'll have funding for down the road?"
So, what's in it for Louisiana?
Included in the $3.8 billion: $1.7 billion for the state's Medicaid program, $587 million for public education, $455 million for road and bridge repair and $130 million in flexible dollars to help offset budget cuts.
"He needs to take this $4 billion," said Rep. Walker Hines, D-New Orleans. "He needs to put it in our economy. This will improve the quality of life for many in Louisiana. It will create jobs. It will do some really great things that cannot be done without that money."
Tucker said that right now state budget experts are going over the stimulus package to determine what, if any, strings are attached to the money.
"The governor's folks are going through it," said Tucker. "Our staff is going through it. The auditor is going through it. We don't know yet."
In the meantime, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says he'll take whatever the state turns down.
"There's many aspects of this from transportation to light rail systems to energy efficiency grants to CDGB money," said Nagin. "It should benefit the city of New Orleans significantly."
Speaker Tucker says the state will get right to work on the stimulus package.
He says the Joint Legislative Transportation Committee will meet on Wednesday to start looking at projects that can be moved up the list and paid for with the stimulus money.
Those projects most be identified within a 120-day window.