Lawmakers can save taxpayers $1 billion over the next three years by eliminating 15,000 government jobs as they become vacant, state Treasurer John Kennedy said Thurs-day.

“We have too many government positions,” Ken-nedy said, adding the state spends $8 billion a year paying its 104,000 employees. “We cannot downsize our government in any meaningful way unless we address our cost of labor.”

The treasurer said his proposal does not call for any layoffs and targets only the 16,000 vacancies filled each year.

State Treasurer John Kennedy addresses members of the New Iberia Kiwanis Club. JIM MUSTIAN / THE DAILY IBERIAN Advertisement

At a New Iberia Kiwanis Club meeting Thursday, Kennedy revealed several proposals he plans to make or has made to his colleagues on the state Commission on Streamlining Government, a panel charged with drafting a report by the end of the year outlining how the state can cut costs.

Kennedy said the savings produced by reducing the amount of government jobs could rein in a mounting budget shortfall, which is projected to be about $1 billion for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Though he suggested government employees earn too much money, he said 20 percent of the savings generated by his proposal could be used to give raises to “people in the trenches asked to take on additional responsibilities.”

“We’re not going to have $29 billion to spend next year or the year after that,” Kennedy said, referring to the state’s budget. “We either have to increase revenue or decrease spending.”

Kennedy, who switched to the Republican Party in 2007 and was defeated last year in his bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate, said he is fundamentally opposed to raising taxes.

“I believe that if you let men and women keep more of the fruits of their labor, your society is better off,” he said. “I think that’s a principle on which this country is built, and we’ve tended to stray from it.”

Kennedy also briefly touched on education and health care. He proposed getting rid of the state’s three systems of higher education and consolidating them under the Board of Regents. 

“A single board would be open to the ambitions of every single school with the understanding that we can’t afford for all of our universities to look alike and be the same,” Kennedy said, adding the state is “watering down the soup” by maintaining similar colleges at multiple universities around the state.

Finally, Kennedy called for limiting residents to two emergency room visits per year that turn out to be non-emergencies. On the third non-emergency visit, patients would be referred to a private clinic, which Kennedy said would result in a savings of $100 million a year.

Kiwanis Club members seemed largely receptive to Kennedy’s message.

“I think he has some great ideas,” said George Wright. “It’s a shame we didn’t get him elected senator.”