Both the St. Tammany West and the East St. Tammany Chambers of Commerce hosted legislative wrap-up this month, educating their members on the outcomes of the most recent legislative session.

Dino Paternostro, a member of the Joint Public Policy committee and a lobbyist for both chambers, told members that this year’s session was “fiestier than most.”

He defined it as “serious,” “contentious and times,” and with a “high volume.”

Rep. Scott Simon speaks to member of the St. Tammany West Chamber of Commerce. (Staff Photo by Suzanne Le Breton)

There were 2,200 bills proposed, and of those approximately 1,000 passed.

Rep. Scott Simon summarized some of the high points for members of the west chamber with the help of Sen. Jack Donahue. Donahue also spoke before the east chamber alongside Reps. Greg Cromer and Kevin Pearson.

One of Donahue’s first charges was to help repair the budget from the 2009 fiscal year.

Members of the Senate were charged with accounting for $1619 million in reduced revenue to balance the budget for 2009, before even tackling the 2010 fiscal year budget.

The next charge, Donahue said was the cut the governor’s budget.

He said $65 million was cut, but much more needed to come out and next spring it is going to be tough, because a lot more cuts will have to be made.

Simon said 2012 will be clip year when the legislature has to really take a hard look at where major cuts can be made.

He said in cutting the budget, 300 state jobs were eliminated, and 1,300 people were laid off.

“I don’t think there is anything out there that did not get cut,” Simon said.

He said on a positive note, the session included a lot of good news when it comes to education, including a bill to cut red tape allowing schools to get some state restrictions released so they can fix their own problems before being taken over by the state.

Another bill allows parents of children in special education to shop around for the school they think would be best for their children.

In health care, however, he said a bill to ban smoking in casinos and bars failed.

“That one comes up every year,” he said, “but I don’t think Louisiana is ready to give up their smoking in casinos.”

Cromer said the problem with the legislature is it is not tackling the big problems, as with the budget.

“We are just milling it off piece by piece,” he said. “Those gaps are going to hit us square in the eye after the cuts we didn’t make this year.”

He said one positive money saving item the legislature did was to change the official journal from the Advocate to the legislature’s Web site.

The state will spend money to advertise in local papers to let residents know the bills can be found there, but it will be no where near the $200,000-225,000 it has been spending annual to advertise in the Advocate.

He said another noteworthy action was the making of texting a primary offense. Meaning a person can be pulled over for texting while driving without breaking any other laws.

Pearson spoke on the state debt, which he said was $3.5 billion. He said while that number is staggering, even of more concern is the fact that the state retirement system currently has $17 billion of unfunded liabilities.

“This is not talked about nearly enough,” he said, pointing out that a bill was passed to prohibit people from retiring from a state job and being rehired unless they are being rehired to do a job that has been identified as being in need.

He sad a constitutional amendment concerning the retirement system will be on the fall ballot. That amendment, if passed, would make it so that only one-half vote is need to impose a cost to the retirement system. Currently any bill that imposes a cost to the retirement system requires a two-thirds vote.�