Louisiana’s public school financing formula won’t be proposed for cuts next year from Gov. John Bel Edwards, despite the state’s deep budget gaps.
The Associated Press reports Edwards assured a group of educators at a town hall-style meeting Tuesday night that he wouldn’t seek to reduce the $3.7 billion funding formula. But he also told the audience that he didn’t expect financing for K-12 public schools to be boosted in the budget year that begins July 1, saying educators should expect flat funding from the state.
Public schools have received some increases in the financing formula over the last eight years even as other programs and services across state government have taken cuts.
Edwards spoke at a listening tour event sponsored by the Louisiana Association of Educators and the National Education Association.
In other news from the governor’s office, Edwards announced today that he’s keeping his predecessor’s picks to lead Louisiana’s juvenile corrections office and the state’s financial regulatory agency.
Edwards is reappointing Mary Livers as deputy secretary for the Office of Juvenile Justice and John Ducrest as commissioner of the Office of Financial Institutions. Livers was appointed to the position in October 2008 by former Gov. Bobby Jindal after working in three other states’ corrections agencies. The Office of Juvenile Justice manages juvenile incarceration and prevention and diversion programs for at-risk youth.
Ducrest has been in his job for more than a decade for two previous governors, Kathleen Blanco and Jindal. Blanco named him commissioner in June 2004. The Office of Financial Institutions regulates many of the businesses that provide financial services in Louisiana.
