BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The Louisiana House advanced two bills that would make pay raises for K-12 public school teachers and staff in the state permanent if approved by the full Legislature.
House Bill 5 , authored by state Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, requires school systems to give a salary increase for teachers and other school employees using savings attributable to the state’s payment of certain unfunded accrued by the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana.
HB5 is an accompaniment to House Bill 7 , authored by state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, which is a constitutional amendment that seeks to streamline rebates, tax exemptions and credits.
Under HB7, three funding sources, including the Education Excellence Fund, the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund and the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund would be removed from Louisiana’s constitution.
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Funds from these three sources would pay down around $2 billion in debt from the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana and provide permanent teacher salary increases.