Louisiana Governor JEFF LANDRY (photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)
Governor Jeff Landry announced his solution today to prevent a potential pay cut for teachers. The governor has signed an executive order that directs BESE to find $168 million that’s NOT used on instruction from the state’s public school budget and use that money to pay a $2,000 stipend for teachers and a $1,000 stipend for support workers.
“Everyone I’ve talked to has said there’s plenty enough money in the system; in fact, there’s over a billion dollars in unassigned funds that school boards are sitting on,” Landry said.
This plan will likely not sit well with school superintendents who say they need more money because of rising fuel costs, insurance and other expenses.
But Landry says since 1988, Louisiana’s K-12 enrollment has dropped by more than 111,000 students, yet the cost to education each child has increased 67%.
“This tells us one thing: We do not have a revenue problem. We have a priorities problem,” Landry noted.
Landry says when you take into account inflation, Louisiana public school teachers are actually making less than what educators made in the 1980s.
Teachers have received a $2,000 stipend since 2023, but it’s on the verge of going away because two different constitutional amendments failed to pass over the last two years and the stipend was not funded in the budget just approved by lawmakers.
But the governor believes the money to pay for the stipend can be found in the non-instructional section of the state’s public school funding formula.
“Let me tell you; I’m separating the teachers from the bureaucracy now. We’re going to focus on those that matter the most, which are the teachers,” Landry said.
Landry will need the support of the Legislature, before $168 million can be removed from the Minimum Foundation Program. It will take a two-thirds vote by both the House and Senate.
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