BATON ROUGE – Governor John Bel Edwards said the state is approaching a fiscal cliff and the legislature needs to work together to address a $1 billion shortfall forecast to hit in 2018.

The concern was revealed in a letter to State Rep. Taylor Barras, the Speaker of the House.

     > READ the letter HERE.

The governor said he does not plan to call lawmakers into a special session before the 2018 regular session, but asked that lawmakers begin to discuss what options they'd support to deal with the deficit. The governor said a special session – which costs $60,000 per day – is too costly since the legislature has, according to the governor “inability to move any legislation to replace” what is forecast to be lost.

“It is time for constructive dialogue,” the governor said, between Democrats and Republicans to come up with ideas to fund state operations.

Lawmakers couldn't agree on a budget at the end of the most recent regular session and had to enter into a special session to deal with passing a budget.  

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