16 June 2025
By Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) – The Louisiana Legislature overwhelmingly approved a $51 billion budget on Thursday (June 12) without funding for Gov. Jeff Landry’s signature private education voucher initiative, one that he initially celebrated with much fanfare.
Legislative leaders, especially in the Senate, had said for the past year that they weren’t going to fund the LA GATOR program in the budget cycle that starts July 1. Landy and state education Superintendent Cade Brumley pressed forward with launching the program anyway, attempting to force lawmakers into changing their minds with public pressure.
In March, Brumley opened up applications for LA GATOR for the 2025-26 school year, even after Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said he didn’t think the extra slots would be funded. Now without the additional money, none of the nearly 30,000-plus students who Brumley encouraged to apply for extra voucher slots will have an opportunity to receive funding for private education this coming school year.
In the approved budget plan, lawmakers only included $43 million to pay for school vouchers for 5,600 students attending private schools under a voucher program started more than a decade ago by former Gov. Bobby Jindal. They rejected Landry and Brumley’s request to provide $50 million more for a more lenient, publicly funded private education program that was supposed to include 5,300 more students.
Henry and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, have not committed to paying for more private education vouchers with public dollars in future years either.
Approximately three-quarters of the students who applied for LA GATOR this year are already attending private school, according to Henry and McFarland. It raises questions about whether extending vouchers to more families would actually help children escape inadequate public schools or simply subsidize families who are already sending their children to private institutions, Henry said.
McFarland said on the state House floor Thursday that legislative leaders want “assurances that [the vouchers] are addressing the specific needs of those that are in failing [public] schools” before providing more tax dollars to cover students’ private education.
The Pelican Institute, a conservative think tank who has pushed for LA GATOR, was disappointed to see the program go unfunded this year.
“I’m heartbroken for the tens of thousands of families who raised their hands to ask for another option. Because the legislature refused to fund LA GATOR, these children will continue to wait,” Pelican CEO Daniel Erspamer said in a written statement Thursday.
Legislators have instead used the $50 million Landry wanted for private education vouchers to continue a popular tutoring program for public schools that costs $30 million. Brumley attributed Louisiana’s impressive gains on national reading assessments, in part, to the tutoring efforts.
Another $18 million Landry wanted for LA GATOR will instead increase money sheriffs receive to house state prisoners in their parish jails. It raises the daily rate for holding approximately 15,800 state inmates in local lockups from $26.39 to $29.39 per person.
Teacher pay remains level but will be back onthe ballot
Public K-12 school teachers and support staff will continue to receive pay stipends of $2,000 and $1,000 for the third year in row, costing the state almost $200 million in the next budget cycle.
Legislators added the stipends after a state constitutional amendment that was supposed to provide the same amount of money on a permanent basis failed to pass in a March election. In order to avoid cutting teacher pay, legislators resorted to giving out the same, one-year stipend for the 2025-26 school year.
Still, lawmakers will try again to get a state constitutional amendment on teacher and school support staff pay passed on April 18, 2026, the same day of the U.S. Senate primary election.
Legislators also approved a package of bills Thursday to raise teacher and school support staff pay slightly. Instead of giving out the current stipends, it would add $2,250 for teachers and $1,125 for support staff to their permanent salaries – or an increase of $225 and $125 per year respectively.
The proposed amendment will ask voters to dissolve education trust funds that currently support higher education and K-12 schools in order to pay down $2 billion worth of educators retirement debt. Local school districts will then be required to use their debt savings to give out the raises in the 2026-27 school year.
Landry, lawmakers hope for millions more in Medicaid funding
The approved spending plan also adds hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to the state Medicaid budget. The money would be used to pay physicians and hospitals a higher reimbursement rate for treating Medicaid patients.
Landry asked the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services earlier this year to allow more of Louisiana’s medical providers to receive a rate for treating Medicaid patients closer to what private insurers provide.
The federal government has not agreed to pay the new rate yet. But if it does, it will increase Louisiana’s federal Medicaid funding by $500 million in the state budget cycle that starts July 1. Hundreds of millions of federal dollars could also be given to Louisiana to retroactively cover payments in the current budget year that ends June 30.
Louisiana’s request for more Medicaid funding comes at a time when President Donald Trump has pushed to reduce the nation’s overall spending on the program. This leaves some question as to whether the Trump administration will approve the higher rates that Louisiana is requesting.
$1.2 billion taken from savings, mostly for transportation projects
Legislators also voted to withdraw $1.2 billion from a state savings account to spend on one-time projects, primarily for transportation, construction and technology upgrades.
The allocation includes $709 million for roads and bridges, $150 million for economic development site improvements, $75 million for local water system upgrades and $24.1 million to fix the Office of Motor Vehicles computer system that has experienced troubles in recent months.
This article originally published in the June 16, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.