By inserting the stipend Louisiana public school employees have enjoyed for the past two years into next year’s budget, legislators may be writing checks with their mouths that later they can’t cash.
Somewhat surpassingly, the fiscal year 2026 budget contains, for a third year in a row, a $2,000 stipend for educators and $1,000 for staff. Extending it one more year wasn’t supposed to happen in the wake of the defeat of a constitutional amendment that used educational trust funds to pay down unfunded accrued liabilities (UAL) in pension plans–which then would have freed up leftover funds at the local level to be passed along as permanent raises.
But House Republicans pulled a rabbit from their hat when the Appropriations Committee—backed fully by its Democrats—included the raises again. It took near-magic to do so: blocking $91 million in funding for new vehicle and heavy equipment purchases for state agencies; cutting $26 million dollars in benefits for ineligible Medicaid recipients; plowing in $20 million dollars thanks to a hiring freeze; saving $25 million by paying down debt early; and halting a $30 million intensive tutoring program in the Department of Education.
This calculus is sketchy. The $25 million in interest savings is bankable, but the $20 million and $26 million figures are contingent—especially the latter, which may fall short (though it could go higher, given the Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration prided itself on stuffing as many people as possible onto Medicaid as proof that it “cared” and to gain greater control over people’s lives). Plus, the $30 million may be better spent as is.
And while the $92 million is certain, it is one-time money. That might not be so bad if cobbling together these revenues served as a sure and short-term bridge to a permanent funding source, which is intended through two pieces of legislation essentially trying again to induce the swap of idle funds to pay off the UAL as required by the Constitution. HB 473 would amend the Constitution to free the money, while HB 466 would direct it to raises, promulgated by each local education agency, upon voter approval of HB 473’s language.
However, the problem is the popular vote won’t come until the Nov. 3, 2026 federal election date. And even if that succeeds, it wouldn’t be until Jan. 1, 2027 that it comes into effect. That timeline may not be an issue if, as part of the strategy to pass the amendment, the stipends disappear during the first half of FY 2027—putting pressure on supporters of the raise to vote for the amendment. The vote likely wasn’t bumped up to this fall’s election because evidence suggests the defeat of the larger measure this spring stemmed partly from low turnout—so backers want to maximize its chances in 2026, even as that adds another year to the intended solution.
If GOP legislators want to use a half-year without stipend as a motivational tool, they’ll have to resist being tagged as unfair or uncaring when they don’t cough up the roughly $100 million to cover the first half of FY 2027. And where would they get that, by delaying the same purchases again? Worse, what if the amendment failed again with a then-3.5 year history of the stipend, increasing the pressure even more to fund what technically is temporary but which increasingly becomes considered permanent?
What happened in Bossier Parish provides a microcosm. After the amendment failed, the school board – which six years earlier had insisted a raise could happen only by voting in hefty new property taxes that would have given the district the highest rates in the state, but which voters handily turned down – suddenly found money enough to give an equivalent raise, even though the district’s finances were hardly improved. Why? Because it had banked on the state footing the bill, and when that didn’t happen, the political pressure became too much to resist.
The best approach would be to forgo the raise in the budget and change the date of the amendment to this year. That would create a lot of lobbyists out of school employees to cajole voters into supporting the amendment, even in a low-turnout affair. Crying wolf about there being “no money” for stipends and then magically finding it year after year only habituates voters to believe the state will always find a way, which dulls any urgency to pursue a permanent solution that doesn’t involve tax hikes.