Doug Mouton / Northshore Bureau Chief
BATON ROUGE, La. -- It isn't due until Friday, but Governor Bobby Jindal will release his new state budget Thursday.
"This budget will actually decrease spending," Governor Jindal said Tuesday, "It will decrease the number of authorized positions, state employees. It will do so without raising taxes." It's a familiar mantra from the second term Governor.
"Bottom line, it will be a smaller budget than this year," Governor Jindal said. "It will have fewer state employees." And by state law, it will be balanced.
Governor Jindal wouldn't go into specifics. He said his team is "still working on final details."
"The administration likes to play it close to the vest," Senator Jack Donahue of Covington said, "until they're ready to release the budget, for obvious reasons." Donahue is the new Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Governor Jindal answered questions about his new budget Tuesday afternoon, while announcing the expansion of a Fortune 500 company on the west bank of St. James Parish. NuStar Energy, a San Antonio based company, will spend $365 million to expand its St. James Terminal, where crude oil is stored.
"When you look at the 32 direct jobs, average pay over $90,000 a year," Governor Jindal said. "These are great paying jobs, great capital investment. Even during a time of national economic challenges, you've got NuStar making a great investment right here in St. James Parish, right here in Louisiana."
The administration now turns its attention to its budget, and an estimated $500,000 shortfall, which Governor Jindal said, will continue his streamlining efforts. "We've got the fewest number of state employees that we've had in over 20 years by doing more with less," Governor Jindal said. "We're going to continue to do that."
Maybe the biggest budget battle in 2012 will come over how to fix the state's pension system.
"If we don't take the time to fix that retirement program now, the people that are on retirement and will be retiring for the State of Louisiana, their entire system could be jeopardized," Senator Donahue said. "It needs to be fixed now."
None of the budget issues, however, seem as potentially contentious as the fight over education.
Governor Jindal has already announced his intentions to revamp Kindergarten through 12th grade education, and teacher unions have already begun lining up to oppose him. That issue could become the defining issue of the 2012 Legislative Session.
"What do we do about education in the State of Louisiana and what do we do about a retirement system that's not working so well, so those things," Senator Donahue said. "Those things will be what we remember."
