A Louisiana Federation of Teachers survey indicates 97-percent of teachers are not paid enough to raise a family. LFT spokesperson Heather Cushman says recent pay raises from the legislature have only gone to pay higher insurance premiums and the higher cost of living.
Louisiana teachers have not been at the Southern regional average since 2007 resulting in more than 1,200 vacant teaching positions across the state.
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee expressed concerns over proposed teacher pay raises and funding for low-performing schools. Winnfield Representative Jack McFarland says a proposed two-thousand-dollar teacher pay hike will cost the state an additional 196 million dollars a year and what happens when state revenues decline???
AM Cut 13 (07) “..to put that in.”
Colonel Lamar Davis expressed concern to lawmakers over the growing number of state troopers leaving the department. He says troopers are choosing to retire much sooner than they did in the past and there are just under 900 troopers in Louisiana.
Davis says troopers in Texas are paid almost twice as much and the pay in Tennessee and Mississippi surpasses Louisiana.
On the heels of Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s announcement that he will not seek re-election, Speaker of the House Clay Schexnayder has thrown his hat in the ring. The Gonzales Republican is term-limited in the legislature and says he wants to continue his twelve years of public service.
AM Cut 4 (06) “…right direction.”
Schexnayder believes Ardoin and his staff should be commended for their work and the office’s top ten rating when it comes to election integrity.