A coalition of Louisiana civic advocates calling itself WE the People — Louisiana is campaigning for a NO vote on Amendment 3, one of five constitutional amendments on the May 16, 2026 statewide ballot. The amendment would liquidate approximately $2 billion in three constitutionally protected education trust funds — the Education Excellence Fund, the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund (LEQTF), and the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund — to pay down debt in the Teachers' Retirement System of Louisiana (TRSL), on the theory that reduced district pension contributions would fund a permanent $2,250 raise for teachers and $1,125 for support staff. The campaign argues that Amendment 3 is "not a raise — a withdrawal," that it replaces a recurring $68 million in annual education funding with a one-time asset sale, that the Legislative Fiscal Office itself conceded the net fiscal impact "cannot be fully quantified," and that Louisiana teachers deserve a real pay raise funded by recurring revenue rather than by liquidating the state's education inheritance. Louisiana's two largest teacher unions (LFT and LAE) have endorsed Amendment 3; the campaign argues the endorsements were offered reluctantly after three years of stipend-based pay and that LFT President Larry Carter publicly preferred a funding mechanism not included in the amendment.
"Amendment 3 is not a teacher pay raise. It is a one-time liquidation of $2 billion in Louisiana's constitutionally protected education trust funds, dressed up as a raise. The raise is real for a period of time. The liquidation is permanent. When the mathematics stop working — and the Legislative Fiscal Office has told us in writing that it expects them to — the cost will land on the General Fund, on Louisiana's already-overstressed education budget, or on the teachers themselves when the raise is quietly reduced or rescinded."
"Louisiana teachers deserve a raise. They deserve it badly and they deserve it now. They do not deserve one funded by cashing out a savings account their grandchildren were supposed to inherit. That is robbing Peter to pay Paul. And Peter is every Louisiana kindergartner in a pre-K slot funded by the Education Excellence Fund, every graduate student on an 8(g) stipend from the LEQTF, every struggling school currently receiving academic-improvement grants. Peter is not abstract. Peter is in the classroom."
"The test for whether a pay raise is real is simple. Is there a recurring revenue source dedicated to funding it, and will that source produce enough money to cover the raise in perpetuity? Amendment 3 fails both prongs. The trust funds are liquidated, not re-dedicated. The savings produced by the TRSL paydown are not recurring revenue — they are an expenditure reduction, which diminishes over time as the amortization schedule progresses. Louisiana's own Legislative Fiscal Office was unable to certify that the revenue side would cover the obligation side. They said expenditures will increase while revenues decrease, and they said the net impact cannot be quantified. That is not a solvable equation. That is an experiment. You don't do experiments with $2 billion in constitutionally protected funds."
"This campaign is entirely pro-teacher. It is so pro-teacher that it refuses to pretend that Amendment 3 delivers what teachers have been promised. Both of Louisiana's largest teacher-union organizations have endorsed the amendment, and we respect their reasoning — after three years of stipends, something permanent on paper is better than another year of uncertainty. We simply disagree that 'permanent on paper' is the same as 'permanent in practice.' Even LFT President Larry Carter, whose organization endorsed Amendment 3, told the Legislature in his own words: educators cannot rely on good intentions alone. He preferred a funding mechanism built directly into the Minimum Foundation Program. That mechanism is not in this amendment."
"Louisiana voters have been here before. In 2015, the Legislature passed a 'clean penny' sales tax sold to voters as temporary and then spent as though it were permanent. When it expired in 2018, Louisiana faced a $1 billion budget hole that required three special sessions to plug. Amendment 3 builds the next clean-penny cliff deliberately — except this time, the non-permanent revenue is a trust-fund liquidation instead of a temporary tax, and the permanent spending is a salary-schedule commitment instead of a general operating expense."
"The five amendments on the May 16 ballot form a pattern. Amendment 1 is a power grab over Louisiana's civil-service workforce. Amendment 2 is a resource extraction from East Baton Rouge. Amendment 3 is a fiscal illusion — a raise funded by liquidation. Amendment 4 is a tax shift. Amendment 5 is entrenchment — extending judicial careers past the historic retirement age. Each amendment, in its own way, hands a short-term political win to a specific constituency at the cost of long-term structural health for everyone else. Amendment 3 is the one the state most needs voters to see in isolation — as if it were only about teachers. It is not. It is the middle act of a five-act play."
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