Governor Takes On The Real Government
by JOHN MAGINNIS - LAPolitics (excerpt)

Through the first half of his term, Gov. Bobby Jindal had his way with the Legislature, a feat made easier by his not asking them to do much. Now as he grapples with the hardest budget challenge for any governor in the past two decades, he is having less success with the real government, that is, those who control most of the money. Not Congress, but, rather, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Civil Service Commission.

The two constitutional bodies are not so much separate branches of government as they are the trunk, setting the course of growth that the administration and the Legislature have little choice but to follow. Under the constitution, BESE sends the Legislature a spending proposal, the Minimum Foundation Plan, now approaching $4 billion, which lawmakers cannot amend but must either accept or reject. If it's rejected, last year's plan takes effect. The governor and Legislature have less say over salaries for state employees, as Civil Service rules require that practically all of 60,000 classified workers get 4 percent annual pay raises, unless an agency makes a case for no raises for all to avoid layoffs.

Between the MFP and salaries for classified workers, BESE and Civil Service, largely unknown to the public, control the lion's share of state spending. Given the unprecedented fiscal shortfall in the next two years and his own ambition to reshape government, this governor wants more flexibility -- some say control -- in dealing with both groups. Instead, both panels have defied the governor's austerity edict with proposals that would send more money to local school districts and that would continue to tie his and his Cabinet's hands on compensating state employees.