Scaremongering over teacher pay cuts

At last Saturday’s election, voters had many positive reasons to cast a ballot in favor of the proposed Constitutional Amendment 3, paying off debt in order to fund a teacher pay raise, but one of them was NOT that public school educators would receive a pay cut.

Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, told reporters Wednesday, May 13, “If the public doesn’t vote to give [teachers] a pay raise, then that means they don’t want to give them a pay raise…So the legislature is not going to turn around and do something that our constituents voted not to do.”

“They will not get the stipend. That is 100% accurate because the public, the voting public, would have just voted not to do that,” Henry continued. “So if your constituents vote not to do something, it doesn’t make a lot of sense [for lawmakers] to turn around and do it.”

The issue centers on the fact that for the last two years, the state has offered $2000 and $1000 pay “stipends” to teachers and support staff respectively.  In theory, those expenditures were scored as one-time payments. If the constitutional amendment is passed, though, those stipends statutory would become permanent annual salary increases of $2,250 and $1,125, respectively.

Effectively, Henry argues that public school salaries would be cut should the amendment not pass, as the funds would no longer be dedicated to provide any further stipends.   Admittedly, the current version of the state’s annual budget proposal does not include funding for the teachers stipend, which would cost an additional $200 million per year. Louisiana’s financial outlook also worsened in recent days, as the Louisiana illuminator noted.

Nevertheless, the stipends have constituted a fulfilled campaign promise of the Landry Administration.  The governor has committed to provide the stipends on an ongoing basis.   For the Senate president to threaten to revoke them – as a retaliatory action against an electorate worried that the permanent elimination of the Education Excellence Fund, the Education Quality Trust Fund, and the Quality Education Support Fund might negatively impact money going to poor classrooms – hardly constitutes a fiat accompli.

The current governor is the son of a public school teacher, and Jeff Landry has made teacher pay raises one of the central tenants of his administration. Even though our editors disagree with Jeff Landry on many other issues, this newspaper lent its support to vote in favor of Amendment 3, so that permanent teacher pay would be enshrined for future administrations. 

However, for Henry to threaten a teacher pay cut if the voters do not support the legislature’s proposed constitutional amendment possesses the moral equivalency of Attorney General Liz Murrell’s threat to remove and criminally prosecute the New Orleans City Council, mayor, and district attorney if they call a special election for the combined Orleans Clerk of Court‘s office.  The AG worries that Calvin Duncan might win, so she does not want to trust the voters for that to happen.

In a democracy, trusting the voters always remains paramount.  Vox populi, vox Dei.  “The voice of the voters is the voice of God” is the truism which always must humble every elected official, even if he or she does not like the result that the electorate provides at the ballot box. President Henry, to threaten teacher pay to get your way constitutes scaremongering of the worst degree, unworthy of your office as the third most constitutionally important position in state government.

This article originally published in the May 18, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.