Imagine spending weeks gathering documents, navigating an application, verifying numbers, and doing everything right, all because you desperately want a better educational fit for your child. Imagine waiting – and waiting – to find out whether your child will get off that interminable waitlist. Waiting for the legislature to decide. Now imagine being told the money simply isn’t there.
That’s the message Louisiana’s Senate risks sending to 17,387 families who did exactly that during this year’s application window for the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) scholarship. These aren’t abstractions. They are mothers and fathers from New Orleans and Winnsboro, from Lake Charles and Monroe, from Alexandria and Opelousas who played by the rules, believed Louisiana was serious about education freedom based on the rhetoric of our political leaders, and got conditionally approved, only to find themselves caught in a budget debate that has more to do with political will than anything else.
The Senate should know who these families are. Eighty-seven percent of those applicants come from households at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty line. More than 1,000 have children with disabilities. These are not affluent families seeking a subsidy. These are working Louisiana families trying to access the same quality of education that wealthier families have always been able to buy. Fully funding LA GATOR is not a luxury. For these families, it is a lifeline.
Louisiana voters are paying attention. The Pelican Institute’s Pelican Pulse Poll found that 65% of Louisiana voters support fully funding LA GATOR, including 59% of Independents and 62% of Democrats. This is not a partisan issue. It is a parent’s issue.
And the money is there. Let’s be direct about that.
Louisiana’s Minimum Foundation Program, the formula the state uses to fund public schools, has consistently appropriated more than schools actually spend, because public school enrollment keeps falling. Over the past five fiscal years, the gap between what was appropriated and what was actually spent has totaled nearly $200 million. This past year alone, with public school enrollment down roughly 13,000 students, approximately $42 million in MFP funds will go unspent and revert to the state’s general fund. That’s money originally intended to educate children who are no longer in those classrooms. It should follow them wherever they are learning.
Further, when children leave the traditional public system for a GATOR-funded option, the MFP allocation for that child is no longer needed, creating a built-in offset that makes the true net cost of fully funding GATOR substantially lower than critics claim or than the fiscal note will show.
Beyond unused education dollars, the state is sitting on a $577 million surplus from the prior fiscal year, plus an additional $292 million in unspent cash from the current budget year. And, of the cash spent in the last fiscal year, $100M went to “local” pork-barrel projects. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a person more concerned with reckless and wasteful government spending than I am (and than my employer is). We continue to strongly advocate for a Government Growth Limit and a phase-out of the personal income tax to zero. That requires meaningful fiscal discipline. Discipline is about prioritization.
The House did its part, passing a budget that preserves Gov, Jeff Landry’s recommended $87 million for GATOR, nearly double current funding. Still, even this amount leaves 5,200 eligible children on the sidelines waiting. The ball is now in the Senate’s court.
Here is what the Senate should understand: every child left unserved is a family that trusted us. Those 17,000 families didn’t have lobbyists. They didn’t have political connections. They had hope, and they had a process that told them Louisiana was ready to meet them. To turn around now and tell them there isn’t enough money, especially with $42 million in MFP funds is heading back to the general fund, is not a fiscal argument. It is a choice.
Louisiana can fund LA GATOR. The question is whether the Senate will choose to.
The moment to act is now. These families are waiting.
