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House Education Committee advances bill to make teacher raises permanent using savings from paying down retirement debt
Summary
The House Education Committee reported HB 5 with amendments on Nov. 12, 2024. Sponsor Rep. Brett Bakula said the bill would direct savings from paying down the Teachers' Retirement System unfunded accrued liability to permanent $2,000/$1,000 salary increases for certificated and noncertificated school employees; committee adopted technical and funding-backfill amendments and advanced the bill by unanimous consent.
The House Education Committee on Nov. 12 advanced House Bill 5, a measure that would direct school systems to use savings from paying down part of the Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana’s unfunded accrued liability (UAL) to provide permanent salary increases for school employees.
Rep. Brett Bakula, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee the measure is intended to work in tandem with a separate constitutional amendment (HB 7) that he said would free roughly $2 billion to pay down UAL. "This bill obviously is tied to HB 7," Bakula said, explaining the legislature's plan to use the one-time resource to reduce annual retirement payments and free recurring dollars for employee pay.
Bakala and staff provided estimates for the savings that would result if the UAL payment were reduced; Bakula described a first-year reduction in retirement payments of about $289 million, roughly $207 million of that for K–12 and roughly $75–76 million for higher education. He cautioned those are simulations and that local district variables — hiring…
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