(Louisiana Illuminator) - With less than a month to go until classes begin, state officials have updated the plan to cut state funding to public schools in order to fund teacher pay stipends this year.
School districts who give teachers locally funded pay increases this year can now use them to offset state funding cuts they were supposed to receive. They will not be required to shift as much money from their operational funding into temporary pay stipends Gov. Jeff Landry has mandated.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved final instructions Thursday for school districts on how to handle the stipends and their corresponding state funding reductions. The guidelines give schools more flexibility on teacher pay than had been discussed previously.
This update comes a few days after school systems across the state announced plans to scrap local pay increases for teachers. Many said they would be forced to put off local raises in order to afford the temporary stipends Landry and the Louisiana Legislature required.
Those school districts now have an incentive to move forward with their pay increases: Their state funding reduction will decrease if they give their own temporary or permanent pay hike for the 2026-27 school year.
When Landry first announced his stipend proposal in early June, he did not mention any loopholes in the plan. At the time, he said he was requiring school districts to offer one-time stipends worth $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for school support staff.
The governor tweaked the plan significantly a couple of weeks later when he was trying to drum up votes from state lawmakers to approve his proposal. He announced through a social media post that school districts that offered local raises of at least $2,000 to teachers would be exempt from giving the stipend and taking a state funding cut.
The guidance BESE released Thursday softens that stance even further. Under the new rules, a school district that gives even a smaller raise will be able to count that amount against the overall state stipend it has to give.
For example, a school district that provides teachers with a $500 raise would only have to give them a $1,500 stipend. The district’s state funding cut, which was required to pay for the stipend, would also drop.
Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, Ascension and Caddo parishes, among others, were planning to give local teacher raises prior to the governor announcing his mandated teacher stipends.
The local school district pay increase must go to both teachers and school support workers who would have otherwise received a stipend under Landry’s executive order.
The original version of Landry’s plan was expected to cost the state $168 million and result in a state funding cut of 5% to each school district on average. Under the updated rules, it’s unclear how large the funding cut will be at the state or local level.
Public education overall is receiving less money from the state this year than it has recently.
The state had supplied approximately $200 million annually over the past three years to school districts to pay for $2,000 and $1,000 pay stipends for teachers and school support staff, respectively. That extra money was not included in the budget this year.
Instead, Landry and lawmakers had hoped voters would approve a constitutional amendment that would have allowed them to tap into restricted state funds to provide a permanent teacher pay raise to replace the stipend. When voters rejected that plan, Landry and lawmakers turned to their proposal to require school districts to use their existing state funding, which they typically use for other purposes, to backfill the stipend gap.
Under Landry’s plan, some school staff members who received state-funded pay stipends the past three years won’t receive them this year. His proposal excludes school nurses, therapists, counselors, teachers-in-training, principals and other administrators from the pay bump.
The legislature’s joint budget committee and the state Revenue Estimating Conference, which oversees the state’s financial accounts, also took procedural votes Thursday to free up the state funding for the stipends.
The legislative budget committee vote to free up the funding was 30-2, with the two dissenting votes from state Reps. Ed Murray and Shaun Mena, both New Orleans Democrats.
