The original instrument and the following digest, which constitutes no part of the
legislative instrument, were prepared by Jay R. Lueckel.
DIGEST
SB 274 Original 2016 Regular Session Donahue
Present law provides that the budget office under the direction of the division of administration shall
furnish each budget unit a set of guidelines to allow the office to establish a continuation budget.
The continuation budget is defined as that funding level for each budget unit which reflects the
financial resources necessary to carry on all existing programs and functions of the budget unit at
their current level of service in the ensuing fiscal year.
Proposed law retains present law and requires the budget office to also prepare a standstill budget
as well as a continuation budget. Additionally, both budgets shall be submitted to the Joint
Legislative Committee on the Budget at the first meeting in January of each year.
Proposed law provides that the elements of the standstill budget, to be defined and developed by the
budget office under the direction of the division of administration, shall begin with the existing
operating budget for the current fiscal year as the base and shall include component adjustments as
determined by the budget office, including but not limited to:
(1)Compulsory adjustments that reflect activities imposed by one sphere of government on
another by constitutional, legislative, administrative, or judicial action.
(2)Workload adjustments for activities that are based on demographic or other significant
environmental changes.
(3)Elimination or reduction of non-recurring items.
(4)Any other environmental factors affecting a program such as growth or decline in the
revenues and expenditures trends affecting a program.
(5)Annualizations of items that were initiated partway through a fiscal year and must be
continued in subsequent fiscal years on a twelve-month basis.
Proposed law provides for the elements that shall not be included in the standstill budget:
(1)Merit Increases/Performance Adjustments.
(2)Inflation Adjustments.
Proposed law also provides for implementation of the standstill budget in the executive budget
contents and format of the executive budget. Effective July 1, 2016.
(Amends R.S. 39:29(A), 32(E)(3) and (7), and 36(B)(1)(c), (6), and (8))