K-12 FUNDING BILL - Last week the Louisiana House of Representatives approved a $30 billion dollar operating budget that included support for funding TOPS Tuition, giving teachers a $1200 payraise along with a $600 increase for support staff BUT the house stopped short of supporting Governor John Bel Edwards K-12 funding proposal of $39 million dollars for local school districts.
The bill now heads for the Senate and while increasing teacher pay appears to be getting bi-partisan support, the K-12 funding is getting pushback from both parties as there are concerns that the funding wouldn’t be used as the legislature would like. Despite this, Governor Edwards is still sticking to his guns on insisting his K-12 education funding also be approved as he has the backing of education leaders and had this to say at his press conference last Friday.
“This is the first step in a multi-year process to bring teacher pay back to the southern regional average where it was 10 years ago," explained Edwards. "But it is important that we also acknowledge that it’s been years since we increased the per-pupil allocation to our districts.”
Lawmakers have voiced concerns about the $39 million K-12 funding proposal which is less than 2% of the budget as they fear local school boards would apply it to areas other than K-12 education. But Edwards maintains that such notions are unwarranted given that local school boards are elected positions subject to local scrutiny.
Edwards said "the people in the school districts are going to hold them accountable as school board members and they are vested with the authority to run education in those districts.”
The budget now goes to the Senate for debate and Governor Edwards expects it to be approved.
