At Louisiana First News, which is the website for WVLA-TV (NBC Channel 33) in Baton Rouge, there’s an article talking about the aftermath of Saturday’s failure of the four constitutional amendments and in particular the failure of Amendment 2, the omnibus tax-reform measure which contained lots of moving parts.

One of the key pieces to Amendment 2 was that it made some changes which would allow manipulating some of the constitutionally-established dedicated funds in order to enable the state legislature to pay off a bunch of debt that local school districts were carrying on the books – and the savings from not having to pay the debt service would free up enough money to cover a $2000 pay raise for teachers and $1000 for support staff.

But Amendment 2 didn’t pass, obviously. It went down to a 35-65 defeat just like the other three amendments did.

In the wake of that, Channel 33 says legislators are scrambling…

There were plans to consolidate some of the state funds and pay down teacher retirement debt. That debt pay down would lead to districts having a savings to put towards a permanent raise of $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for support staff that was put into place last year. Teachers and staff face a pay cut after the amendment failed to pass.

“Those were conversations that are being had [Monday] and will be had this week as far as the direction that we go in,” said state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro. “You know, we will have to take money from somewhere else to put it on that. I think the question is going to be where would you take that from and would a majority of the legislature be willing to do that?”

During the tax reform session, the legislature approved reducing the state income tax to a flat 3% rate for all. That hit to the budget was made up in part to raising the state sales tax to 5% and diverting funds from the construction mega projects account that takes from the vehicle sales tax revenue.

Louisiana lawmakers to explore options

It would cost the state $198 million to cover the cost of the stipend in the budget. House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said there are discussions being had about the priorities in the budget and where the money could be taken from. He said he believes they can make it work, but have to determine as a body how to make up the funds.

McFarland said he has spoken to constituents who said they liked some of Amendment 2 but not other parts, which led them to vote against it. He said there is a possibility of piecemealing the amendment through several bills to send back to the voters.

OK, stop. Enough of this.

I’m one who’s on the record saying that using constitutional dedicated-fund money to kill debt and then pass the savings into a teacher pay raise was a brilliant move. I still think it was a brilliant move.

And teachers across Louisiana should have come out en masse to pass Amendment 2 as a result. Did they?

Not only didn’t they, but most of the ones I’ve seen actively opposed Amendment 2.

They didn’t want a pay raise attached to any budget or tax reforms. They wanted a “clean” pay raise, and what’s more, they wanted more than $2,000.

We can argue about whether Louisiana’s teachers should be paid more. And I’m not going to make the old argument that Louisiana’s taxpayers aren’t getting an increased return out of the state’s educational system, because in the last few years the state is actually beginning to climb up the standings on test scores.

It’s worthwhile to talk about giving rewards for better educational performance.

But I will make an old argument, and a very true one. Which is that public-school teachers in Louisiana do not work for the state.

They don’t.

They work for local school districts.

And that’s where the issue is.

Do you know that the local school boards opposed Amendment 2 because they didn’t want to be forced to use the savings from the state paying down their debt load on teacher pay raises?

I could show you a bunch of data on how local school districts are run. Instead, I’ll just show you one. I saw it in an article at the Magnolia Tribune out of Mississippi last fall. This is based on national data, but it applies here…

We have the same administrative bloat issues in local school districts in Louisiana that exist everywhere else. None of those school districts are tight ships or well-run by the standards of, say, corporate America (and that’s not exactly a gold standard, either). There are tons and tons of deadhead administrative jobs where nephews and brothers-in-law get parked.

So this idea that the state legislature needs to hop to and shower those local school districts with pay-raise money for teachers that they employ and neglect, when a solution was already crafted to do so and rejected by the very people who would benefit from it, seems exceptionally dumb to me.

I have no problem with Emerson or McFarland running a bill that would put that piece of Amendment 2, specifically the formula of paying down that debt and directing the local school boards to use the savings on teacher and support-staff pay raises, on the ballot again this fall as a new constitutional amendment.

Well, that’s not true. I do have a problem with that, but my problem is with putting constitutional amendments on an otherwise-empty ballot in a low-turnout election nobody cares about. I don’t have a problem with the idea of putting this plan in front of the voters as a standalone, though.

But in the meantime?

Do not run yourself ragged attempting to find money to pay the teachers this year. That attempt was made, and they didn’t help to pass it.

Let’s bear in mind that this is not generally a very supportive interest group where Republican or conservative causes are concerned. It’s true that public school teachers in Louisiana are less universally Democrat than in other states, but Jack McFarland and Julie Emerson and Jeff Landry didn’t get elected because the teachers supported them.

Bending over backward to help people who consistently vote against you is not how you build political capital. It’s also not how you fix the structural problem with education funding in this state – namely, that the legislature is constantly pressured by the education lobby to intervene in something which is best run at the local level.

Particularly at a time when it’s obvious that school choice and innovation are the future of primary and secondary education and the more top-down governance and funding are applied, the more barriers Louisiana will have in becoming a leader in that sector.

Our teachers ought to get more money. But they ought to actually become part of the majority coalition trying to do better in this state rather than the dead-ender leftist mob whose governance model has clearly failed. Rewarding them with a pay raise after they helped kill Amendment 2 at the ballot box – or, put another way, giving taxpayer dollars to that pay raise when the taxpayers apparently voted down the idea on Saturday – is suspect policy and incompetent politics.

Let them hit up the local school boards for pay raises. This legislative session should be about fixing high insurance costs and giving taxpayers a break, and not a whole lot else.