School Funding Freeze Goes to Senate (LA)

June 16, 2010

State aid for public schools would be frozen for the second consecutive year under legislation that won easy House approval Tuesday.

The vote was 90-6. The legislation, House Concurrent Resolution 243, next faces action in the Senate.

The proposal would authorize some $3.3 billion to be spent to help pay for teacher salaries, school supplies and other costs. The distribut ion goes through a complex formula called the Minimum Foundation Program.

The latest proposal was approved by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE, on June 8.

The panel initially sought an increase of $109 million over current state aid. But BESE backed off that request, and endorsed a second proposal, after state legislative leaders made it clear the initial plan would not win approval amid state budget problems.

The Legislature can only accept or reject BESE’s request, but cannot change it.

House Education Committee Chairman Austin Badon, D-New Orleans and sponsor of the resolution, repeatedly deflected questions on whether he thought the proposed aid for public schools is adequate.

Badon noted that it would take another $64 million to boost state school assistance by 2.75 percent, which was the hike schools received for years.

“You would have to take it from another needed or valuable service,” he told the House.

“What is a more needed or valuable service than education?” asked state Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin.

The latest proposal would increase aid by $44 million but only to offset the cost of about 6,000 new public school students in Louisiana. Per-pupil spending would remain the same.

The resolution approved by the House mirrors the amount initially recommended by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Education leaders say they are hamstrung by predictions that state revenue will drop by $3 billion in the next two years.