But Louisiana’s legislative budget leader cast doubt that the state would find enough new dollars to close the gap, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate.

AD

“I don’t see anything that gives us any indication that there’s a lot of growth in revenue that we can expect over the next three years,” said Jim Fanni, the committee chairman, who is also a Republican. “I don’t have a lot of confidence that we can expect all of that to materialize.”

AD

Jindal recently hired a New York-based consulting firm to identify new ways to boost revenue, under a contract that has so far cost the state $7.3 million. The company, Alvarez & Marsal, has promised to save $2.7 billion over five years.

While some states have started to see their first budget surpluses since the recession, Louisiana’s budget forecasts have been in the red every year since Jindal took office in 2008. Over the last six years, he has pitched cost-cutting ideas from selling state buildings to privatizing prisons.

AD

Shannon Bates, a spokeswoman for Jindal, called the projections the “first step in the process of presenting a balanced budget next year.”

“This projected spending increase is an accumulation of every government agencies’ wish list,” Bates wrote in a statement. “We know that increasing government spending by hundreds of millions of dollars would not be fiscally responsible.”

AD

While Jindal has gained national prominence for his education reform plan, his handling of the state’s budget has been called his “blind spot” by conservative critics. One Republican lawmaker – a self-described fiscal hawk – said Jindal’s budgets have been based on “accounting gimmicks.”