LA tax relief must precede hiking teacher salaries

Political campaigning for elections later in the year generally picks up after Labor Day. But, regardless of impending 2018 contests, it appears some Louisiana politicians have decided to beat the rush for 2019 and start more than a year out.

In the case of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, that’s an understatement. Edwards has run a perpetual campaign that never stopped after his 2015 win. Trust him to take an issue no matter how unrelated to his political fortunes and find a way to appropriate it to achieve his next goal, in this case reelection.

Several states have launched investigations into alleged coverups of patterns of abuse by Catholic priests and others associated with the Church. In Louisiana, Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, in response to queries, said his office did not have the authority to do such a thing until it received a criminal complaint forwarded by a local law enforcement agency.

An accurate, fair statement of state constitutional law on the matter – but unsatisfactory in the eyes of Edwards, who heard Landry say last month he could defeat him if he ran. Asked for a reaction to Landry’s request that, if ever called upon to undertake such an investigation, the executive branch make available the state police, an Edwards’ mouthpiece said that Landry was grandstanding on the issue and that Landry claimed “he doesn’t have enough authority to do his own job. Politics should never drive the attorney general’s decision to investigate allegations of criminal activity, but his only objective is to score political points.”

Such a statement demonstrates Edwards’ ignorance both of the constitution and law and blatant desire to politicize an issue for campaign purposes. But he doesn’t need to shoehorn in an issue when he has available the tried-and-true tactic of distributing goodies – and when concerning teacher pay increases, he’s not alone.

Edwards last month called for a 1.375 percent increase in state spending on public schools, dedicated to a teacher pay raise. State money for cost-of-living salary boosts hardly has increased in the last decade, and now the average pay across the state has slipped to about $1,700 below the regional average of $50,949 (academic year 2016 data).

Of course, Louisiana has one of the worst educational systems in the country despite ranking 28^th in per capita educational spending (2016 data), so policy-makers must ask whether current spending patterns and educational administration priorities need altering to produce better results, including whether to shunt more existing resources to supporting instructors. Keep in mind as well that most with a teaching certificate work only the equivalent of three-quarters of a year, so that regional pay has an annual equivalency of around $68,000.

Even on nine-month contracts, this puts teacher (excluding preschool) pay in Louisiana among the higher-ranking professions, varying by area from 211^th to 307^th out of 717 occupations with data, in 2017. In the state, the annualized equivalent pay for secondary school teachers, middle school teachers, kindergarten teachers, and elementary school teachers (in all applicable cases not including special education or technical) respectively are $67,600, $65,607, $65,627, and $64,413.

But if policy-makers must pick something as arbitrary as the Southern regional average as a goal, they shouldn’t formulate as arbitrarily the mechanism to get there. Ideally, raises would be determined by performance, such as through using annual evaluations. Further, these would be targeted towards areas of highest need.

In reality, the state has little control over that in the absence of enabling legislation. Districts set their own salary schedules and means of determining pay raises. While Edwards has said he wants to reconfigure the Minimum Foundation Program to achieve a raise, which could introduce these kinds of criteria, he also wants to throw in money from sales tax increases to fund more.

Hoping for an improved budgetary outlook, some influential legislators would go even higher. This exposes the bankruptcy of Edwards’ sales tax increase – perhaps not that the state didn’t need something of the sort, but that it was too high and lasts far too long. It reveals the true purpose of its higher rate and length than necessary – as a tool to take resources for the people then spread it around to build reelection credentials now and for 2023.

Before any teacher pay raises occur using general fund dollars, citizens deserve tax relief. Only after that should policy-makers initiate a raise methodology with this money rewarding merit and need. Use of raises for electioneering purposes must take a back seat to restoring to taxpayers what is rightfully theirs.