State incentive package includes $30 million for steelmaker
Gov. Bobby Jindal's facilities planning chief said Monday his office sidelined construction projects for this year that didn't have much money to advance the work, as part of its efforts to cobble together $30 million for steelmaker Nucor.
View full sizeThe Nucor site in Convent was photographed in September. Jerry Jones, whose office supervises state-funded building projects, said his office didn't propose money for any projects that were slated for so little funding that it wouldn't really make a dent in the work.
For example, a project that will cost $10 million, but was slated to receive only $20,000, didn't make the Jindal administration list.
"Those little bitty pots of money, you can't do anything with," Jones told lawmakers on a joint House and Senate panel.
After that, the administration prioritized the remaining projects, he said.
The Bond Commission, which meets Thursday, must agree to the spending plans before they can begin.
Louisiana has a cap on annual borrowing that will limit construction spending to $320 million in the current 2010-11 budget year. Lawmakers had passed the budget with just enough projects to eat up all the available cash.
But Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret asked to use $30 million for Nucor, as part of the state's incentive package for the company. The planned iron and steel facility in St. James Parish could total $3.4 billion and create 1,250 jobs.
To give Nucor construction budget money, other lawmaker-approved plans have to be derailed.
Lawmakers questioned how the decisions were made and asked why projects they supported for local communities seemed to take the brunt of the cuts.
"It doesn't seem to necessarily be objective or in the open," Rep. Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said of the decision-making process.