A panel that oversees Louisiana’s income projections will meet Friday to look over revised revenue estimates for the current year.
Some members of the Revenue Estimating Conference expect to see a lower revenue projection than the one used to craft the state budget last spring.
Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana, will speak about the state budget today in Bossier City. His nonprofit specializes in statewide public policy issues. Erwin says Louisiana is experiencing flat growth, which doesn’t square with all of the economic development activity.
“When you look around and see all the activity going on in the economy, and certainly hear all the announcements that we keep hearing, there’s a feeling we ought to be doing better in terms of things like sales tax revenues and income tax revenues, but we’re just not,” Erwin said.
In recent years, the state’s budget architects have opted for a patchwork of fixes. The Louisiana Constitution demands a balanced budget. Often, it’s meant borrowing from its own coffers and moving money around to get in the black, according to Erwin. Louisiana was riding high heading into the Great Recession, and then the bottom fell out six years ago.
“It was the national recession. Oil prices plummeted. We were at the very end of that Katrina boom. On top of all of that, we also lowered taxes in the state. It was sort of a perfect storm of a lot of things that happened -- some within our control, many outside of our control,” Erwin said.
The greatest challenge facing a new governor and Legislature in 2016 will be to shore up the budget once and for all, Erwin said. He thinks it will mean taking a critical look at the many tax credits and exemptions to ensure they are paying off.
Erwin speaks Thursday at 11:30 a.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bossier City, as part of the Bossier Chamber of Commerce’s Pancakes and Politics series. Doors open at 11 a.m.
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