AG: Budget change won’t create as much revenue as thought
Those funds from the Budget Transparency and Simplification Act are a linchpin for the budget. If the funds do not produce as much money as originally thought, it could further complicate the quickly approaching new budget year. Various state agencies, such as Mental Health and the Department of Health, are already announcing cuts and employee layoffs and legislative leaders have conceded they budgeted $56 million more revenue than the state is expected to have.
Hood, the lone statewide elected Democrat, has been a critical of the bill from the onset.
“Legislators passed this bill and created havoc for these agencies,” Hood said in an earlier interview, adding the proposal should have been studied a year before being enacted in one session in an attempt to offset sluggish revenue collections.
In the official opinions, the Attorney General’s office said trust funds were created in law to be administered by specific agencies and the Budget Transparency and Simplification Act does not repeal those trust funds. So the agencies should keep on administering the trust funds that receive specific streams of revenue.
Daily Journal
6/15/16
Magnolia Tribune
