Lawmakers limit teachers’ pay, cut $100M in health spending

BY ALLISON ALLSOP | LSU MANSHIP SCHOOL NEWS SERVICE

Under a compromise approved in the chaotic closing minutes of the spring session Thursday, state lawmakers limited a $2,000 pay increase for teachers to a one-year stipend and cut $100 million from what the Senate had sought for the Louisiana Department of Health.

Those moves came even though legislators had more than $2 billion of revenue at their disposal beyond what had originally been expected to supplement both the current budget and one for the fiscal year starting July 1.

In the deal, lawmakers also added back more than $40 million for early childhood education programs and $25 million for extra differential pay for teachers in demand areas like math and science.

The final votes came with angry lawmakers demanding to know what had happened with the teacher pay raises and the health cuts and objecting strenuously that they did not know the details of the bills they were voting on.

The package of budget bills includes hundreds of million for roads and bridges, health care and higher education as well as money to pay down state debt.

The House voted 95-9 to approve the final version of House Bill 1, the state operating budget negotiated by a conference committee made up of members from each chamber. The Senate passed it 35-3.

But as lawmakers heard a few of the details of the final agreements only 20 minutes before the session expired, some demanded to know why the teacher pay raise was not made permanent and how House members could have slipped in the $100 million cut in health spending.

Sen. Rogers Pope, R-Denham

Springs, and a long-time educator, called the failure to make the teacher pay raise permanent an insult to teachers.

“The budget has come back in horrible, horrible condition,” he said.

Sen. Fred Mills, R-Parks, the chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, said he could not understand how the Health Department budget could have been cut at the last minute when the state has so much extra money. Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, responded that House members insisted on the cut.

It was not immediately clear which health programs would be cut or whether the reduction would cause a corresponding loss in federal funding.

As House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzalez, rushed see TEACHERS’ PAY, page 4

LGBTQ+ BILL, from page 3 identified gender. Gender-affirming care is used by transgender people, who identify as a gender different from their sex assigned at birth, as well as cisgender people, who identify as their assigned sex.

Gender-affirming procedures, such as top surgery, which adds or removes breast tissue, or bottom surgery, which constructs a vagina or penis are not recommended for minors, according to Dr. Kathryn Lowe, a pediatrician who represents the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on LGBT health and wellness.

Treatments are individualized to the patient. Some young pa-

TEACHERS’ PAY, from page 3 members from one vote to another as the clock ticked down to the 6 p.m. end of the session, conservative Republicans lashed out at him for refusing their demands about voting procedures.

“Mr. Speaker, you have to follow the rules of the House,” Rep. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, the leader of the House Republican Delegation, shouted. “ Noone is above the rules of the House, not even yourself.”

Conservatives in the House had battled for most of the two-month session to hold onto expenditure limits under a formula that caps tients will be prescribed fully reversible puberty blockers, giving the patient time to consider their options.

Later, a patient may be given hormone treatments that can help young people go through puberty in a way that allows their body to change in ways that align with their gender identity. These treatments are partially reversible.

Firment’s bill requires any youth currently receiving genderaffirming healthcare be taken off the course of treatment by the end of 2024. Providers who specialize in gender-affirming healthcare say that there is no length of time that would make discontinuing care safe, pointing to the risk of legislative spending in an effort to reduce the size of the budget.

But Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and Senate leaders teamed up to pressure House members to lift the cap and allow up to $250 million of the extra funds to be spent this year’s and $1.4 billion to be spent next year.

At a press briefing after the session ended, Edwards said the late cut in the Health Department budget came as a “complete surprise” to him and could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in related federal funding.

He also criticized the increasing partisanship at the Capitol.

“You heard me say this before: suicide. we’re not Washington D.C.,” he said. “We’re moving in that direction, and that is not a good thing.”

Studies approximate 80% of transgender youth have considered suicide, and 40% report at least one suicide attempt. Research also indicates gender-affirming healthcare leads to improved mental health outcomes.

Chris Kaiser, advocacy director for the ACLU of Louisiana, expressed relief that the bills will not become law.

“These bills sow division, invite discrimination, and are at odds with our fundamental constitutional rights,” Kaiser said in a statement to the Illuminator.

The Legislature, which has a supermajority in both chambers, has the option to override the veto.

Earlier in the session, Edwards had proposed a $3,000 pay increase for teachers that would continue in future years. House Republicans wanted to use part of the windfall to pay off state and local debts for the teachers’ retirement program, ostensibly freeing up money for parishes to decide whether to give raises to their teachers.

Education leaders placed ongoing pay raises of $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for support staff in the Minimum Foundation Program, a formula for allocating

In Louisiana, a veto override session automatically occurs 40 days after a regular legislative session unless a majority of lawmakers in either the House or the Senate send in ballots to cancel it.

The first time legislators opted to hold the session was in 2021, when no overrides were successful. But the occasion marked a new era of increased tension between the legislature and the governor, who will be leaving office next year.

Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates, said she hopes it wouldn’t come to a veto session.

“I pray legislators maintain Louisiana values and ensure these funding to school districts.

But late Thursday, lawmakers ignored that plan and rewrote the raise into the budget, thus turning the increases into one-time stipends. Some members said they would try again next year to make the raises permanent.

As the session came to an end, some lawmakers said $44 million had been added back into the budget for early childhood education programs.

Edwards’ original budget proposal had included $52 million for the programs to help replace some of the federal funds being lost for that. Administration officials had said $52 million would bills do not become law,” Michelle said in a statement to the Illuminator. have helped to retain only a quarter of the 16,000 subsidized seats for children that were created during the pandemic.

House Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma, the second-highest ranking legislator in the House, thought a veto session is unlikely.

“Members are exhausted from this session, and they want to be back in their districts for campaigning, and they know there is a new governor next year that is more likely to sign,” Magee said in a statement to the Illuminator.

The Louisiana Republican Party-endorsed candidate for governor, Attorney General Jeff Landry, has previously expressed support for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

The Senate’s budget had reduced that to $14 million, which would have funded about 1,120 seats, while the House budget had cut that funding to zero.

House Bill 1 is the main budget bill for fiscal year 2024. Lawmakers also passed HB 2, which outlined construction and infrastructure projects for next year, and HB 560, which provides for any remaining spending the legislature wishes to use for this year. Other supplemental bills made up the rest of the budget.