(The Center Square) – The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has sent its proposed Minimum Foundation Program formula to lawmakers, backing a plan that would increase funding for school operating costs.
Public school enrollment is projected to fall by roughly 12,000 to 13,000 students.
The proposal includes a $30 million increase through Level 3, which covers operating expenses. Under the plan, the per-student operating amount would rise from $100 to $147. The board’s vote now sends the formula to the Legislature, which can adopt it or return it with changes.
Ashley Townsend of the Louisiana Department of Education said the increase is intended to help districts keep up with costs that do not decline simply because enrollment falls.
“Level 3 of the formula is a flat per pupil, every single student gets the same amount of money,” Townsend said. “The operation expense formula has been at $100 since 2008. And that goes into running a school, regardless of how full the classrooms are.”
She said districts still face fixed costs such as electricity, insurance, fuel and utilities even when fewer students are enrolled.
“You’re going to have to pay for electricity in all the classrooms, and regardless of how many students live down a street,” Townsend said. “So there are certain operation costs that a district will realize, regardless of whether it is enrolled to its full capacity.”
According to Townsend, the department tied the proposed increase to inflation after finding the consumer price index had risen 47% since the operating-cost amount was last adjusted.
“That would be helping school districts finally catch up to the increases that we’ve seen in things like insurance and fuel costs, utilities,” she said.
At the same time, the projected enrollment decline would reduce the formula’s Level 1 cost by about $42 million, creating room within the governor’s proposed funding program budget. The board’s proposal would use part of that amount to cover the $30 milllion increase in operational costs, while leaving an estimated $12.9 million uncommitted within the Minimum Foundation Program agency budget.
The foundation was funded at $4.265 billion in fiscal 2026, though total state K-12 funding stands at about $5.4 billion. Other education funding streams include $10 million through the Education Excellence Fund and $20.5 million through the Quality Education Support Fund, both of which may be eliminated if voters approve Amendment 3 in May.
Townsend said some items the department had previously sought – including high-dosage tutoring, internships and apprenticeships, and differentiated compensation – are instead included in Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive budget proposal. She said the department was told those items did not need to be included in the formula.
Those items include $30 million for high-dosage tutoring, $17.5 million for differentiated compensation, and $2 million for internships and apprenticeships. Last year, the Legislature approved $200 million for teacher stipends.
Townsend said the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education plans to send lawmakers a resolution supporting those initiatives, as well as the LA GATOR program.
The foundation program proposal will next move through legislative education committees before lawmakers decide whether to adopt it.
“If they decide they don’t like the proposal, they can send it back to BESE,” Townsend said.
She said the department had at one point considered codifying high-dosage tutoring and differentiated compensation in the formula program itself, but ultimately backed away from that approach because of the long-term obligation it would create.
“When you codify it that way, it really locks the state into devoting that money to those things,” Townsend said. “We like the idea of this continuing to be a priority year after year, but we do understand that it’s a big commitment to say, ‘we’re going to lock this in for funding.’”
The tutoring issue could also grow more expensive if lawmakers approve a bill by Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, to expand high-dosage tutoring eligibility through eighth grade. Under current law, the program applies only to students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
The Louisiana Department of Education estimates it costs about $30 million to serve roughly 178,000 students. Expanding eligibility by three grade levels would add about $15.2 million in annual costs, though the final number of additional students would depend on how many campuses qualify.
