Amendment 3 is the sneakiest horseshit I’ve ever seen
And that’s a high bar for the Louisiana state legislature. The text of the amendment reads:
Do you support an amendment to fund a $2,250 teacher pay raise and $1,125 support staff pay raise by utilizing the
remaining savings from paying down the debt of the Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana with monies from certain
constitutional funds?
To which everyone would say yes, because no one’s crazy enough to say teachers aren’t underpaid.
Except for the state legislature. Who has said just that consistently in their votes for the last ten years. So what does the amendment actually do?
It pulls $5.5B out of savings accounts dedicated to education funding. Right now those accounts generate $68M per year of education funding. That funding goes away.
Next, the legislature wants to use $2B to pay down teacher pensions. They argue that because school districts won’t have to spend as much on teacher pensions they can increase teacher pay. Importantly, this bill does not directly fund teacher pay raises, and instead only directs school districts to use savings, to as great a degree as possible, to fund those pay raises.
What do they want to do with the other $3.5B? I have no idea. But in short, this amendment pulls $5.5B out of savings, spends $2B in a hope (but not guarantee) to allow school districts to fund teacher pay raises, and generally says fuck you to Louisiana. Please vote no tomorrow.