Louisiana lawmakers have until 5 p.m. June 23 to cast their vote on whether to shift $168 million from public school operations to another year of public school teacher pay stipends. 

The move would help Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and legislators avoid a looming pay cut of $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for support workers that will otherwise go into effect July 1.

But it will leave every public school district, including charter schools, with less funding to take care of other costs such as insurance, building maintenance, administrative expenses, grounds upkeep and construction, according to a presentation the Louisiana Department of Education posted online. 

Two-thirds of each legislative chamber must approve the teacher pay plan pushed by the governor through an executive order. Republicans make up over two-thirds of the members in the House and Senate but don’t always vote as a bloc on matters such as school funding. That means Democrats could become crucial to getting Landry’s plan passed. 

Legislators received their ballots Monday morning and will fill them out via an online portal.

House Republican Caucus Chairman Michael Echols of Monroe said Monday that he feels optimistic his chamber will reach the two-thirds threshold. 

“I still feel good about the ballot,” he said.

But many Democrat legislative leaders haven’t made up their minds about how they will vote. They said they were waiting on more detail about what the impact of the school funding cuts will be.

“It’s the unknown that is giving members a lot of pause,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Kyle Green of Marrero said. “We want to make sure we have all the information we can possibly have to make an educated decision.”

The state’s two largest teachers unions, Louisiana Association of Educators and Louisiana Federation of Teachers, have not endorsed Landry’s plan yet. Union leaders said they are waiting on more specifics about how the cuts would affect school districts before taking a position.

Some school district leaders are already raising alarms. Jefferson Parish School Superintendent James Gray sent a letter to his legislative delegation Friday warning the reduction in operational funding could impact students directly.

“[T]here appears to be an assumption that districts can simply absorb reductions of this size through administrative savings, efficiencies or reserve funds,” wrote Gray, who said Jefferson Parish schools would lose an estimated $12 million to $14 million under the plan. “That may sound reasonable in theory, but it does not reflect the reality that many districts face.”

Landry and lawmakers are struggling to keep teacher pay and school funding level in a year when they have about $100 million less to spend than expected. The state is taking in less money than initially predicted after the governor and legislature cut personal income and business tax rates in 2025. 

At the time they passed the tax cuts, Landry and the lawmakers had hoped to get more flexibility when it came to state budgeting to help with potential tax revenue reductions.

They were relying on the public to approve a constitutional amendment to allow them to liquidate existing educational trusts funds to pay down school employee retirement debt early. School districts were then supposed to use their debt payments savings to give teachers and school support worker salary increases that would replace the temporary pay stipend they’ve received since 2023. 

But voters have rejected that constitutional amendment twice, most recently in the May 16 election. So Landry has pivoted to taking money from school operations to cover most of the stipends and avoid an unpopular teacher pay cut. 

The governor and legislators have also formed a task force to look at school funding overall to find a long-term source of revenue to make those stipends permanent. 

Even if Landry’s plan goes into effect, some school staff members will still see a pay cut. The state pay stipends given out over the past three years cost $198 million annually, and Landry’s plan only covers $168 million for the 2026-27 school year.

The Louisiana Department of Education presentation indicates employees who won’t receive the stipend under Landry’s plan include school therapists, nurses, counselors, principals, assistant principals, other administrators and central office staff.

The governor’s executive order also directs the $168 million for the stipends not to come from “non instructional” state funding for schools, or money that supports school transportation, food and security services. 

Those prohibitions mean school districts have to absorb cost cuts to  their superintendents’ offices, business operations, building maintenance and operations, grounds care, equipment upkeep, vehicle operations, childcare as well as their planning and research, according to the education department presentation.

Landry’s order also dictates that school districts and charter schools should use their savings to backfill the operational cuts “where feasible”. Landry said last week that school districts were collectively sitting on $1.8 billion in reserves that they could use to deal with a financial reduction.

But the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents and Administrators said this “sweeping claim” reflects a “fundamental misunderstanding” of why school systems keep reserve funding.

School districts are urged to keep the equivalent of 20% of their operational money in savings in order to deal with a catastrophic event like a natural disaster, said Rapides Parish Superintendent Jeff Powell, the association’s president, in a written response Thursday.

The reserve funds are also needed to cover sick leave, rising health care costs, increased fuel prices and other unanticipated expenses, Powell said.

Furthermore, the reserve money cannot be used over the long term to deal with a shortfall in teacher pay, according to Powell.

“It is unrealistic to expect this type of recurring budgetary expenditure–without an increase in recurring evenue–to not have negative consequences on existing programs, personnel, and services of school systems,” he wrote.