BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A bill that would change the structure of constitutional funds passed the House of Representatives today with overwhelming support. 81 approved and 15 against.

A large part of HB 7 is to consolidate the allocations that teachers and support staff currently receive; as part of their annual salary. The bill’s author, Rep. Julie Emerson, said it would save the state and local school systems money.

“One of the most important aspects is withdrawing $2 billion from the Millennium Trust Fund and making a payment toward teacher retirement debt; TRSL,” Emerson said. “When we do this, we will end up saving the state money in interest payments and freeing up enough money at the local level to give tenured teachers a $2,000 per teacher salary increase and $1 000 dollars per support staff. »

Even with these increases, teacher pay in Louisiana remains below the southern regional average, but Emerson said paying off pension debt now would free up more money in the future. It’s how the state pays off that debt that has some Democrats wondering what happens to other funds.

Representative Matthew Willard, chairman of the Democratic caucus, asked Emerson what happened to the funds allocated to:

“Teacher recruitment, jump test administration, career readiness programs, is there anything that should give school districts across the state confidence that these programs will continue to be funded, especially early childhood education,” Willard said.

With this plan, your taxes would not automatically be earmarked for these programs, as is currently the case. Richard Nelson, secretary of the Department of Revenue, said those funds are expected to be appropriated in the next legislative session.

“It’s a mechanism that will save us a lot of money,” Nelson said. “So the $10 million for early childhood education, I think everyone thinks it’s important and there are ways to solve this problem in the future.”

Emerson said there is history to support this claim.

“I think we’ve seen it in recent years in the early years, especially when the federal funds have declined, you’ve seen the Legislature fund it year after year, so I think you’ve already seen it with the Legislature current and the one that preceded it, there is a commitment to that,” Emerson said.

HB 7 is now on its way to the Senate where it awaits further debate and possible approval.

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