If voters reject Emerson’s constitutional amendment, lawmakers will have the choice of either funding teacher pay increases through the regular budget process or cutting teacher salaries.

The three funds Emerson seeks to use to pay down the debt – the Louisiana Quality Education Trust Fund, the Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund and the Education Excellence Fund – currently support various educational programs.

Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, a former teacher, said using those funds would result in the elimination of 1,500 seats in early childhood education programs. The money is also used to fund certain higher education needs, including research and matching grants.

The legislators also approved an amendment to the bill Thursday would give school districts flexibility in how they use excess funds that would have gone toward paying pension debt. This could offset some of the early childhood education seats that could be lost by raiding the funds that support them, but not all school districts would see additional savings.

In fact, some school districts wouldn’t realize enough savings to make their teachers’ pay raises permanent, but Bacala said he believes it would cost the state less than $1 million to make up for it. the difference, a small drop in the bucket in the entire state budget. .

An analysis of the bill of the nonpartisan Legislative Legislative Bureau said the amount the state would have to provide to struggling school districts could be between $70,000 and $6.2 million.

Bacala’s bill does not explicitly address charter schools, whose teachers are largely not enrolled in the Louisiana Teachers’ Retirement System. Orleans Parish, where nearly all schools operate under charter, would benefit the least from the bill, but lawmakers are exploring alternatives to fundraising so that licensed teachers don’t see a pay cut.

“I intend to treat everyone equally and make everyone whole,” House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said in an interview.

Paying the pension debt would also free up about $75 million per year currently paid toward debt at Louisiana’s four higher education systems: the University of Louisiana, LSU, Southern, and the community and technical college system . Lawmakers, including McFarland, currently appear to favor higher education retaining these savings, but that won’t be finalized until the Legislature crafts the 2025-2026 budget during its spring legislative session.

Allowing higher education to keep these savings would offset the roughly $20 million in support institutions would lose by dissolving the three state funds.

The overall plan aims to stabilize the state budget after years of relying on a temporary 0.45% sales tax that expires June 30. If the plan is adopted in full, analysts say it will result in a slight permanent increase in state revenue. state general fund, which finances most state government services.

But it will also result in an overall loss of state revenue, particularly money kept in reserve accounts, of a few hundred million dollars per year.