“Our approach to the 2016 budget includes a full review of every activity in every agency’s budget and the cost associated with them,” said Kristy Nichols, the chief budget adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. “Nothing is off the table at this point.”

A study published in 2013 by the Council on Foreign Relations suggested that job losses from a sharp decline in oil prices would be largest in Wyoming, Oklahoma and North Dakota.

But Louisiana, which has a smaller and less diversified economy than Texas, is already feeling the sting of the price downturn because it relies on more oil and gas money for its operating budget. Louisiana loses $12 million for every $1 in decline in the annual average price of a barrel of oil, according to Greg Albrecht, the state’s chief economist.

“From a strictly budgetary perspective, Louisiana is more sensitive to all of this,” said James A. Richardson, a Louisiana State University economist who serves on the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference, which estimates how much money will be available for the budget. “It shows up in our house much sooner.”

Gifford Briggs, vice president of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, said some sections of the industry were beginning to scale back as reality set in and prices dropped. Though production in existing wells is expected to continue apace in the coming months, companies are already shrinking their drilling and exploration activity, he said.

“Landmen say they’re laying off everyone they have right now until things pick up,” he added, referring to the independent firms that provide services to exploration and drilling companies.

In the mid-1980s, as oil prices sank below $12 per barrel, bumper stickers and signs in Louisiana asked those leaving the state for jobs elsewhere to “please turn off the lights.” Houston lost 221,000 jobs from 1982 to 1987, and people in West Texas still talk about Black Friday — Oct. 14, 1983 — when the First National Bank of Midland closed, in what was then the second-largest bank collapse in United States history.