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‘No good options’: Louisiana school systems search for savings to offset funding cut 22%
By PATRICK WALL26%
7/20/2026, 9:00:00 AM
Keywords: Hardwall
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Pessimism Bias, Optimism Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 11.3% saturation with 113 hits. Analysis detected 938 faulty-reasoning hits from 998 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35.5% and a BS Rank of 22% (17,193 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 78.60% of the article peer group.
As Louisiana school systems plan for the coming school year, some are expecting to cancel raises and hold off on hiring to make up for a state funding cut.
School districts are slated to receive state payments by July 25 that will be smaller than what they previously budgeted for.
The reduction is due to a decision by Gov.
Jeff Landry and state lawmakers to pay for teacher stipends by sending less money to schools rather than pulling from the state budget, as they had in the past.
Some school district leaders had held out hope for a reprieve.
But those hopes fizzled last month after lawmakers voted in favor of the $168 million funding reduction, and education advocates dropped a lawsuit challenging the cut.
Now that school systems know their state funding will be trimmed by an average of 5% this school year, some are starting to share how they intend to plug the budget hole.
A few districts might scrap planned raises and instead give the one-time stipends — $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for school support staff — that Landry’s order dictates.
Others plan to cut costs by pausing construction projects or keeping positions vacant when employees leave.
In Tangipahoa Parish, the school system’s chief financial officer presented possible cost-saving measures to the school board this month.
The district could pause non-essential purchases, delay non-emergency capital projects, or temporarily freeze employees’ annual salary increase, said the official, Jeff McKneely.
“There's no good options,” he said, adding that the state funding reduction is no longer just a potential hazard.
“It's a done deal.”
Landry issued his executive order last month after voters rejected a plan to finance teacher raises by tapping education trust funds, and the Legislature did not include money for teacher stipends in the state budget.
Landry has argued that school districts can offset the cut by drawing on their savings and finding ways to “tighten their belt.”
He also says the money is staying in education because it is going toward teacher pay.
“Not a single dollar is being taken away from public education,” he said in a social media post.
“We're investing in teachers, not bureaucracy.”
School board members and superintendents have pushed back, saying their rainy-day funds are meant for natural disasters and other emergencies.
They also dispute the suggestion that their school systems are top-heavy, arguing that central-office staffers account for a small fraction of district budgets.
“It's great politics to say that what we need to do is cut the fat and cut the administration,” McKneely said at the July 7 board meeting, “but the math just doesn't work.”
School employees are districts’ largest expense, and that’s where some are looking for savings.
In Jefferson Parish, school board members said they might postpone 1% teacher raises, which would have cost $6 million annually, and instead give the required stipends.
In Ascension Parish, where officials say starting teachers will see a $5,200 salary increase, the district plans to trim the budget through attrition and by pausing some school renovations.
“We just can't do that,” Board President Jared Bercegeay said at a meeting Tuesday, citing the governor’s order and the possibility of future state cuts.
Jacob Newsom, an Ascension Parish teacher and local union leader, said educators are woefully underpaid, adding that many cannot afford to buy homes in the parish.
He argued that the state could afford to raise teachers' pay without dissolving trust funds or cutting school budgets.
“I don’t understand why every time that teachers or school employees are up for a pay increase, it’s a Catch-22,” he said.
“Something else has to give.”
Boards have proceeded with planned raises in some school districts, including East Baton Rouge as well as Assumption, Caddo, and St.
Tammany parishes.
Those districts are looking for other ways to cut costs.
“We didn’t want to freeze salaries,” said Frank Jabbia, superintendent of the St.
Tammany School System, which gave employees a $350-$500 pay bump.
“That would just send a horrible message.”
Instead, the district will seek to eliminate about 300 staff positions through attrition, Jabbia said.
In Assumption Parish, where officials say starting teachers will see a $5,200 salary increase, the district plans to trim the budget through attrition and by pausing some school renovations.
After an outcry from school system leaders, Landry said last month that local pay increases would count toward the required stipend amounts.
But more than four weeks later, school districts still have not received written guidance about which local raises meet the governor’s requirements.
“They don’t know anything yet,” said David Claxton, executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Education said guidance is being finalized.
The slash in state funding comes as school systems already are reeling from enrollment declines and rising costs of everything from fuel to property insurance.
Rural districts with limited local revenue have been hit especially hard.
In Caldwell Parish, the school system closed a campus this year and is eliminating 11 positions to address its shortfall, said Superintendent Nicki McCann.
But now the state cut has put them further behind.
“It basically did away with all the cost-savings we had worked so hard to do,” she said.
Even as they navigate the current cut, school systems are bracing for future reductions.
In conjunction with Landry’s order, the Legislature established a task force to review the state’s school funding formula, known as the Minimum Foundation Program.
The committee, which is expected to begin meeting next month, has been tasked with finding a way to pay for permanent educator raises.
Some local officials worry the task force will recommend taking the money from school systems rather than tapping the state budget.
“We have to be prepared for this type of cut to be reoccurring,” Jabbia said.
“If we don’t prepare, we’re going to be in the same situation we‘re in right now.”
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