BATON ROUGE - State lawmakers are learning that agency cuts made during former Gov. Bobby Jindal's tenure may have gone deeper than the efficiencies that were described.

Jindal and his leaders regularly explained away reductions made over the last eight years of state government budget cuts as doing "more with less," improving government and streamlining without damaging programs and services.

Now, as Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration digs into the agencies, lawmakers are hearing a different story.

Edwards' cabinet secretaries who inherited the departments say the budget slashing has made it difficult to operate programs, leaving some agencies unable to perform the tasks lawmakers thought they had paid for over the years.

They've been detailing staffing shortages and reduced services as they talk about their budgets with lawmakers gathered in a special session.