Louisiana’s official state budget deficit estimate for the next fiscal year has shrunk from $558.8 million to $338.9 million, but mostly because stipends for school teachers and support staff have been left out of the more recent calculation. 

The $338.9 million projection assumes Gov. Jeff Landry and state lawmakers will not renew a $2,000 stipend for public school teachers and $1,000 for school support staff that they have received for the past two years. In the current budget cycle, the stipends cost a total of $199 million.

It also doesn’t factor in money for differential pay bumps for teachers with hard-to-fill jobs in math, science and at schools serving predominantly low-income families. Funding for tutoring programs state Education Superintendent Cade Brumley supports has also been excluded.

If those extra schools expenses are added back, the budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2025, is much higher — $587 million — state budget director Ternisa Hutchinson said at a legislative budget hearing Friday.

Legislative leaders indicated they will still look at renewing the teachers pay stipend, even if it isn’t part of the official budget estimate.

“Those items will factor into budget discussions moving forward,” according to a press release sent out from House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, and Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, after Friday’s budget meeting.

State budget officials had to leave the education programs out of their projection by law because legislators chose to fund them on a temporary basis this year, Hutchinson said. Anticipating a budget shortfall, lawmakers have been reluctant to turn the stipends into permanent raises, which would make them harder to cut if needed. 

But the omission also affects estimates for state budget deficits in future years, Hutchinson said.

Without the teacher stipend and other education programs, deficits for budget cycles 2026-27 and 2027-28 are expected to be $370 million and $508.3 million, respectively. If that spending is included, however, the estimates jump to $617 million and $755 million.

Next year’s financial shortfall is largely attributed to Louisiana lawmakers voting in 2018 to automatically cut the state sales tax 0.45% on July 1, 2025. The reduction, which will leave the state sales tax rate at 4%, will cost the state $445 million in the next budget cycle. 

DeVillier doesn’t believe there’s enough support from lawmakers to keep the sales tax rate at 4.45%. Two-thirds of legislators in both chambers would have to approve doing so. The conservative House of Representatives is unlikely to vote that way, he has said in recent interviews. 

There are other actions lawmakers could take besides budget cuts to significantly shrink the shortfall however.

The legislators could divert $340 million in vehicle sales tax revenue currently dedicated to transportation projects back into the state general fund, which mostly pays for public higher education, health care and prisons. This would give lawmakers more flexibility to handle the shortfall. 

Until a few years ago, vehicle sales tax receipts went into the general fund anyway. Legislators passed a law to siphon it off for transportation projects in 2021.

Lawmakers could also continue a 2% tax on business utilities that is supposed to be eliminated in July 2025. If they kept the tax, it would generate $220 million that could be counted against the deficit, according to estimates provided by Louisiana Department of Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson.

Legislators could also remove state spending increases factored into the budget for inflation, which total $34 million.

DeVillier said next year’s budget gap projection takes all of three of the aforementioned tax and spending measures into account.

“But we have options that can be considered that will balance the budget, including finding efficiencies in government and creating a more predictable tax structure for the state,” he said.

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – Bethaney Noble, a 2022 Amarillo High grad, signed to play Division I softball at Louisiana-Lafayette.

She’s spent the last two years at Seminole State in Oklahoma, coming off of a strong season.

In 2024, she posted a record of 19-5, with an ERA of 2.58.

She threw 13 complete games with 163 strikeouts, averaging over one strikeout per inning pitched.

Copyright 2024 KFDA. All rights reserved.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said he hopes negotiators iron out a compromise soon over the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, the state’s largest and most controversial coastal restoration project.

The diversion, which has been the centerpiece of Louisiana’s coastal program, would channel up to 75,000 cubic feet per second of Mississippi River water into the bay to mimic how the river built the delta is South Louisiana.

Computer models suggest Mid-Barataria would build 21 square miles of land over a 50 year period.

While many coastal activists hail the project as game changing for a disappearing delta, the project is bitterly opposed by commercial fishing interests. They fear that much fresh water would doom their industries and devastate marine life in Barataria Bay.

COAST IN CRISIS

Plaquemines Parish Government filed suit over the project and issued a stop work order, which brought construction to a screeching halt earlier this year.

In a tentative compromise, the Landry administration and Plaquemines Parish worked out an agreement allowing some construction to continue while negotiators work on a long term deal.

This week, Landry voiced concern about litigation delaying the project and about its rising costs, which have escalated over the years to reach an estimated $2.9 billion.

“We have projects along the entire coast that need to be funded,” Landry said.

Simply downsizing the diversion presents a number of challenges, coastal activists say.

Revising the plans would require an Environmental Assessment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which could lead to a full-fledged Environmental Impact Statement and the possibility of years of delay.

Funding for the project flows from fines and court settlements associated with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Any change in the scope or scale of the diversion would require the approval of the boards that administer that money.

Landry declined to go into specifics about what a compromise might entail, but sounded an optimistic note about the prospects for a solution.

“I can tell you I believe the negotiations between us and the parish and the contractors is going well,” Landry said.

Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel.

Copyright 2024 WVUE. All rights reserved.