(The Center Square) −
Lawmakers will not fund the teacher stipends should Louisiana voters reject Amendment 3 this weekend, meaning teachers could lose out on an extra $2,000 a year.
“If it fails, the public would have just voted to not give a teacher pay raise,” Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, told The Center Square. “When the public tells you not to do something, you don’t do it.”
The amendment would dissolve three education funds, pay down $2 billion in retirement debt, and make permanent the $2,000 stipends currently offered each year to teachers. It would also increase their pay $250.
Henry added that the recent revenue projections would make it more difficult to find the $200 million needed to fund the stipends. Revenue projections presented at the Revenue Estimating Conference last week showed a drop of $113 million for the current fiscal year and $104 million in the next.
Already, more than 200,000 people have voted in the election, according to early vote statistics released by the Secretary of State.
Louisiana’s two largest teacher unions — the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and School Employees and the Louisiana Association of Educators — are backing the amendment.
