Barbour: Legislative agenda related to job creation

By Staff
The nursing home industry currently pays a $4 bed fee, provider fee, and they want to raise that to the maximum that is allowed under federal law which is $6. That would generate another $61 million for Medicaid, a lot of which would go into nursing homes, and they would be able to improve their product and improve their reimbursement rate.
The Star: What is your position on public school funding for the fiscal year that starts July 1?
Barbour: I accepted the Legislative Budget Committee's unanimous recommendation for K through 12 spending. I accepted it because it fit within the budget and also because it fully funded the teacher pay raise for next year, something I campaigned on.
It does not give as much money to the Department of Education for the Adequate Education Program as they asked for. In fact, it doesn't give them as much money as this year.
But it was the unanimous recommendation of all 14 members of the Legislative Budget Committee. I said when I adopted their recommendation that I thought everyone of them was looking and working and trying to make sure we had more money for K through 12. And that I'm doing that, too.
The one big thing that we'd like to do is to increase the amount of money above the Legislative Budget recommendation. But I will only agree to do that through honest budgeting. The worst thing we can do for schools is to appropriate money that's not real.
The Star: Have you looked at House Bill 1279, which the House passed to raise $17.6 million in fee increases to help fund state government?
Barbour: I'm against them. There's actually about $35 million of tax and fee increases, $34 million or $35 million. I am not at all opposed to increasing the fee for vanity car tags. It's not a tax and nobody has to buy one.
But for raising fees on farmers, people who live in rural areas for inspecting their water wells that's a tax increase. The 2 cent tax on cigarettes that are not covered by the master settlement agree, it's a tax increase. It's equitable. But it's a tax increase.
And I'm against any tax increases, and I will veto any tax increases.
It's like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. You know, one seemingly harmless equitable tax increase will bring you a deluge of tax increases. Raising taxes to me is the enemy of controlling spending.
The Star: Why would you like to see public school teachers stay on the job rather than retire?
Barbour: A quality teacher in every classroom is the first essential for quality education. Our pension system gives financial incentives to teachers to retire after 25 to 28 years, take their lump sum pension payment and quit teaching in our public schools.
We need a method to retain those teachers. And there are two fundamental requirements about that method: One is that it does no harm whatsoever to the state pension, the state retirement system. That's the first absolute. The second is that it preserves teachers' current rights but (offers incentives) to continue to teach in the public schools.
The Star: How is your relationship with House Speaker Billy McCoy, a Democrat? Some people speculate you both are at odds with each other over the state budget.
Barbour: I like Billy McCoy. I didn't know him very much before I got elected. I've spent a lot of time with him since then. We meet every week. We talk a lot. I like him.
We disagree on some stuff. My wife and I disagree on some stuff.
There's some hard problems we have to deal with in state government. When you are trying to eliminate a $709 million shortfall in the budget in just two years, there are going to be disagreements because there are no easy answers here.
The speaker and I agree on a lot of things.
The Star: If civil justice reform proposals die in the 2004 Legislature, do you plan to call a special session immediately after the regular session ends?
Barbour: We need to complete tort reform this year. I believe we can do it in the regular session. I'm committed to working to complete tort reform in the regular session. We need to do it this year.
The Star: Is your staff researching how many times you can call a special session?
Barbour: Not that I know of.