Governor Jeff Landry is making the rounds on local talk shows touting his support for Constitutional Amendment 3 on the May 16th ballot. Amendment 3 eliminates three education trust funds and use the money contained in those funds to pay down retirement debt, which will give public school teachers and support workers a permanent raise.
“This is a way that we can give out teachers a permanent pay raise, further reduce the teachers’ retirement debt and then give our state legislators more flexibility as we work towards tax reform,” Landry said.
The three education funds that would be dissolved contain about $2 billion according to the Legislative Fiscal Office. Landry says the money from those funds can be used to pay down a debt of $7 billion with the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana.
“These are all things that happened way back in the day when terrible decisions were made in Baton Rouge, and look, we’re living with that and fixing that and that’s we’ve been doing over the last two years,” Landry explained.
In 2023, the Louisiana Legislature provided teachers with a stipend of $2,000 and school support workers with a $1,000 stipend. The legislature has paid for those stipends ever since, but Landry say passage of Amendment 3 makes those temporary pay raises permanent.
“This way we can give the teachers a permanent pay raise, and we’ve found a way to have recurring revenue continue to make sure that pay raise is permanent,” Landry said.
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