By Gracie Thomas and Avery White | LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE – After 58% of voters rejected a constitutional amendment Saturday that would have given public school teachers a permanent pay raise, the chances of finding money for any types of raises have dimmed, lawmakers say.
Voters also shot down four other constitutional amendments proposed by Gov. Jeff Landry and the Legislature.
Constitutional Amendment No. 3 sought to fund a $2,250 teacher pay raise and a $1,125 support staff pay raise by dissolving three education trust funds, using that money to pay down the debt of the Teachers’ Retirement System. Those savings would have been allocated for the pay increase.
Teachers had hoped that the Legislature, which is in session through June 1, might find some money for a raise if the amendment failed. But given a recent drop in projected state tax revenues, lawmakers say voters probably had the final say on the matter.
“If the people of Louisiana vote not to give teachers a pay raise, then the Legislature can’t come behind them and say ‘Oh, then we’ll do it,’” Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said last week.
“Now, clearly, we don’t have the money to do it,” Henry said. “If the constituents come in and say, ‘Don’t do it,’ very rarely you’re going to have a group of members go, ‘Well, we’re gonna do it anyway.’ That’s not exactly the ideal position.”
Landry had urged voters to approve the teacher amendment. “With a ‘yes’ vote,” he said in March, “we can strengthen the retirement system, improve their take-home pay, and guess what? We can do it without raising taxes.”
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, failed to make the GOP runoff, leaving U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Baton Rouge, and State Treasurer John Fleming to compete on June 27 for a spot in the general election in November.
Landry supported Letlow, who was endorsed by President Trump. But Landry’s push to change the primary election system to reduce Cassidy’s chances—which cost taxpayers millions of dollars–turned out to be unnecessary.
In recent years, Louisiana teachers have received $2,000 yearly stipends, which would have been replaced by funds freed up by the passage of the amendment and liquidation of the education trust funds.
With the failure of amendment No. 3, the Legislature would have to find a place in the budget to continue funding the stipend at a costly $200 million for one year.
But any chance of that happening appeared to dim earlier this month after a lackluster report from the Revenue Estimating Conference, which predicted that the state would take in $200 million less in revenue over two fiscal years than previously projected.
The drop in revenue is likely due to cuts in the income tax rate from the 2024 legislative session.
“If you’re meeting with members now to expand an existing program, you’re short $100 million short this year and $100 million short next year… it’s probably not going to happen,” Henry said. “We just don’t have the resources to do that, especially not for a recurring program.”
Henry said the Legislature, which is in session until June 1, will look at shrinking or limiting programs once they finish drawing new congressional district maps.
Cassidy and some candidates in other races said many voters were confused by late changes in voting procedures, including Landry’s decision to suspend part of the election involving seats in the U.S. House after the Supreme Court invalidated the state’s district maps.
The congressional races were still on the ballot, but Landry said the state would not count the votes in those races.
Cassidy received only 24.7% of the total votes. Letlow, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, received the most votes at 45%, with Fleming coming in second at 28%.
The four other amendments were rejected by even larger margins than the teacher pay one.
These amendments would have authorized state lawmakers to removing jobs from civil service protections, granted the new city of St. George authority for a school system, authorized more local government discretion on business inventory taxes and raised the age limit for judges to run for office to 75 from 70 years.