By Avery White and Gracie Thomas
LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE – Despite the failure of a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed Louisiana public school teachers a permanent $2,000 pay raise, Gov. Jeff Landry said Tuesday he will find the money for stipends.
But he left unclear where the money would come from, as lawmakers had said there was no room in the budget with the legislative session concluding on Monday.
Landry hosted a press conference at the Capitol early Tuesday morning in which he laid out his intent to provide teacher stipends as well as a long-term pay raise with support from the Senate and House.
In recent years, teachers and support staff have received $2,000 and $1,000 stipends, respectively.
However, due to voters’ rejection May 16 of Amendment No. 3, which intended to give teachers a permanent pay raise through the liquidation of three state education funds, the lawmakers had said prospects had dimmed stipends in 2026.
The teacher-pay amendment, along with four others, failed with over 60% of voters rejecting the proposed changes, the second consecutive year in which all proposed amendments have failed.
While Landry did not elaborate on the amount of the proposed stipends and where the money would come from, he said he would examine the proposed budget that the Legislature passes this week to find the $150 million to $200 million that might be needed to fund the stipends by December.
Looking for a more permanent fix, Landry has been working with legislative leaders to create a task force aimed at reconfiguring the Minimum Foundation Program, a formula used by the state to determine how much money is distributed annually to public schools. That formula has not been overhauled in decades.
“The money for a permanent pay raise did not exist under the last government (under Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards), and it doesn't exist today,” Landry said. “But it doesn't mean that it should stop us.”
The 15-member task force will consist of appointees of the governor, House, Senate, Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and others, and it will have until Dec. 31 to examine how money is spent within school districts and adjust the formula to be more efficient, Landry said. Through that process, the appointees will recommend a funding formula that will include a permanent teacher pay raise, replacing the annual stipends, the governor said.
”Their charge is to design a formula that is durable, transparent and sustainable, because permanent pay races must be built into the formula,” Landry said. “Temporary stipends are not a strategy. They don't provide stability, and they vanish the moment the Legislature cannot renew them.”
Once a formula is created, it can only be recommended for consideration to the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education by the Legislature. However, as BESE has already approved a formula for the upcoming fiscal year, the Legislature, as required by the state Constitution, will have to wait until the 2027 session to pass a new formula with permanent pay raises.
“It's important for the people of Louisiana to understand how obstructive (the state Constitution) is sometimes, when we're trying to give people the relief they need,” Landry said, holding up a thick, printed copy of the document. “A lot of times, this Constitution has tied our hands.”
Landry has encouraged the task force to look at everything in the education budget when discussing how to change the formula. He said nothing is off limits.
“There is no way we can't find permanent pay raises in those dollars,” Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie said during the press conference.
The proposed educational funding reform comes among efforts to improve public education, which Landry said would keep graduates in the state and help the local economy. The state government has been failing at those efforts, Landry said.
“The failure has caused us dearly,” he said. “We have lost talent, population, opportunities – and it has left Louisiana trapped in a cycle of poverty and disappointment.”
