Governor Landry explains his plan to make state government more efficient

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – After signing his tax reform package that lawmakers pushed through for weeks in the capitol, Gov. Jeff Landry sat down with WAFB to talk about his new plan to make state government more efficient with its budget. He calls it the “Fiscal Responsibility Program.”

In the governor’s letter to the Senate president and House speaker last month, he instructed both chambers to each select four members to be appointed to the program, headed by his unnamed fiscal responsibility czar.

“We started this year with a budget that was given to us by a legislator who is no longer here,” Landry said. “This is our chance to take some responsibility for government spending.”

Landry said Elon Musk has brought a new dimension to government efficiency. Last month, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the federal Department of Government Efficiency.

“We just want to take advantage of the opportunity to do the same thing here, and I absolutely believe we can,” Landry said.

He said the program will examine how much the state spends on services and then make a recommendation on whether those services can be changed or should be eliminated altogether. Where exactly will they start? He wasn’t entirely clear.

“We’re going to run this fiscal responsibility program over the next quarter or so, provide information back to the Legislature and then go back to the Legislature in a regular fiscal session and continue to make tweaks to ultimately reduce the tax burden, broaden the specific base and.” Stabilize revenue for our state government,” Landry said.

A large part of the state revenue is anchored in the constitution or has a specific purpose by law. Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, said such an effort is common with a new administration.

“It sounds like it’s hard to cut the budget, but here’s the real secret: It’s hard to cut the budget in a thoughtful way,” Procopio said. “Giving everyone a blanket cut of 5% or whatever is pretty easy and politically less painful than hitting one agency disproportionately.”

One thing is certain: the impact of something like this takes time to develop.

“So it might be like you want to change the way the department operates from the way it operates now to a more efficient way in the future, but you don’t just flip a light switch to make that happen,” Procopio said. “While there might be positive results in two to three years, don’t expect something you can reduce quickly to happen right away.”

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