Coastal restoration projects endangered by Jindal-sponsored budget scheme

Lame-duck governor proposes snatching $6.4 million from Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to plug budget deficit

Lame-duck Gov. Jindal is at it again, looking to raid funds to cover a nearly $500 million mid-year budget deficit instead of pursuing more-permanent fiscal remedies, a New Orleans news site has reported.

Jindal’s solution to the state’s fiscals woes includes moving $6.4 million from the Coastal Protection Restoration Authority, the agency tasked with overseeing the state’s plan for coastal restoration and hurricane protection, according to NOLA.com.

And CPRA’s chairman told the news outlet the cuts, which constitute 7.4 percent of the agency’s budget, would impact work on the ground.

“Unlike last year’s mid-year cuts, this would have programmatic impacts,” Chip Kline said in an email response to NOLA.com.

Kline told the news outlet that, if approved, the budgetary move would hamper the state’s ability to match federal funds for some projects currently being constructed. Projects financed on a federal-state arrangement in accordance with the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act require 15 percent state matching funds to receive federal funding.

Governor-elect John Bel Edwards, who has implied he wants to reassess the use of diversions in the coastal restoration Master Plan, has criticized Jindal’s proposals.

An array of organizations also came out against the move, NOLA.com reported.

Click here to read the full story about Jindal’s latest budgetary plan.

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Andy Crawford has spent nearly his entire career writing about and photographing Louisiana’s hunting and fishing community. While he has written for national publications, even spending four years as a senior writer for B.A.S.S., Crawford never strayed far from the pages of Louisiana Sportsman. Learn more about his work at www.AndyCrawford.Photography.