The St. Tammany Parish delegation gave its impression of the recent legislative session to a crowd at the East St. Tammany Chamber of Commerce Friday Breakfast in Slidell.

“We had a good session,” state Sen. Jack Donahue of Mandeville said. “But we still need to cut state spending.”

That was a sentiment shared by the other five legislators, who each gave a short four-minute recap. They all agreed Gov. Bobby Jindal was being fiscally responsible by exercising his line-item veto powers. State Rep. Greg Cromer of Slidell said Jindal did not go far enough with the veto pen.

“We will continue to support the governor,” Cromer said.

Sen. A.G. Crowe of Slidell admitted that a lot of programs were deleted by Jindal’s veto pen, but what was cut was all pork.

“We lost a lot of slush funds, which is good, and most of the cuts were responsible,” Crowe said.

The delegation was most proud of the cuts in income tax and the disbanding of the Stelly Plan.

“It will save taxpayers up to $900 a year,” Crowe said.

Rep. Kevin Pearson of Slidell said reducing taxes will force the state to be fiscally responsible because the revenue will be reduced.

“You reduce state spending by giving money back to the taxpayer,” Pearson said.

State Rep. Tim Burns of Mandeville was ecstatic in his view of the session because the delegation was able to do a lot for St. Tammany Parish, he said.

“It was the most successful session in history for bringing money to St. Tammany Parish,” Burns said.

Crowe said the session would bring in more money for public schools, give a raise to teachers and increase spending on training a qualified workforce for Louisiana.

Pearson and Crowe said because of a cut in the budget and state spending, the state has a bigger rainy day fund of $88 billion.

However, despite all the good news and more money for the taxpayer, Donahue said state government still has a long way to go to become more efficient. He suggested that more government jobs need to be eliminated and state departments have to become leaner.

“We have 45,000 government employees, and that is an outrageous number,” Pearson agreed. “We still need to do a lot of cutting.”

Donahue said the system is still not working correctly.

“The Legislature waits for the governor to tell us what to do. I think the Senate should have its own agenda,” Donahue said. “Governors come and go, but the Legislature is always there, and we should have a voice on what is good for the state.”

Cromer was the only legislator who spoke about the session’s most controversial issue — a bill to give legislators a 120 percent raise.

Cromer said he voted for the bill because he wants to end the elitism of the Legislature. He said legislators are either rich or retired because of the low pay and the number of hours required to do the job.

He admitted that his employer, Lockheed-Martin, has given him leeway to work in the Legislature while still working as an engineer at Michoud.

But he said many qualified people do not have that choice. They do not have the independent means to spend long hours working as a legislator.

“If you raised the pay to $30,000, people with other jobs could afford to be in the Legislature and they could take that financial cut in their private job,” Cromer explained. “My concern is that we have a good pool of people who will run for the Legislature.”

He said voting for the pay raise “put a bulls-eye on my back,” but he urged voters not to judge a legislator just on one issue.

“Look at our record after our four years, and then vote,” Cromer said.