Last month, the 2025 Louisiana Regular Legislative Session adjourned—and much happened in the final stretch. Before final passage, major budget bills for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 were amended by the Senate Finance Committee and on the Senate Floor, with new appropriations added for favored municipalities and pet projects. Governor Landry used his line-item veto authority to undo just over $4 million, which may sound like a lot, but is minimal compared to the total amount of funding allocated.

House Bill (HB) 1 had initial promise as a responsible plan for Louisiana’s state operating budget. By the close of the session, however, it no longer included critical funding for the LA GATOR scholarship program—a program that nearly 40,000 families applied for earlier this year and would have saved taxpayers money. Public schools spend just over $15,000 per student, on average, compared with LA GATOR, which would have funded most students at $5,243 or $7,626 (students from low-income households). The Governor proposed an initial $93.5 million in funding for GATOR, which the House preserved. When transferred to the Senate Finance Committee, however, its funding in HB 1 was slashed to $43.5 million. As a result, most available funding will go to students already enrolled in the state’s school choice program and only about 800 new applicants, many of whom are low-income, will be able to enter the program.

Among this major change, the Senate Finance Committee also made the following amendments to HB 1, which the full Senate approved, and Governor Landry signed into law as Act 1:

  • $30 million restored to public schools for a high dosage tutoring program.
  • $20 million to the University of New Orleans (UNO) to pay off debt attributed to a trend of low enrollment at the school in recent years.
  • $17.4 million to increase the per diem rate to sheriffs for housing state inmates.
  • $5 million added for the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).
  • $3 million to the LSU Board of Supervisors for graduate assistantships.
  • $2.8 million to the Office of Motor Vehicles for retention and recruitment issues.
  • $1 million added for parish councils on aging—non-profit corporations.

 

Senators also pulled a stunning $1.2 billion out of a $3.9 billion state savings account and directed it toward college maintenance, roads and bridges, and economic development incentives with little public discussion. Meanwhile, senators killed bills approved by the House to rein in state spending on recurring expenses and provide citizens with greater tax relief—moves that could make Louisiana more financially stable and economically competitive in the future.

 

Supplemental Appropriations: Lagniappe for Locals

The Supplemental Appropriations Bill is often used to fund special legislative projects at the expense of state taxpayers, and this year’s HB 460 (now Act 461) was no exception. This is notably done in a section titled “state aid to local government entities”, which allocates dollars from the state’s general fund (SGF) to favored local projects.

With HB 460, the Senate Finance Committee added over $58 million in state aid to local entities—on top of the nearly $60 million approved by the House Appropriations Committee and the full House. The Senate later passed floor amendments that awarded additional millions to select local government organizations and non-profits.

When all was said and done, state aid to local entities appropriated from the SGF in the supplemental appropriations bill totaled nearly $136 million. How these decisions were made remains largely a mystery, with negotiations happening behind the scenes. This longstanding tradition continued with little transparency or accountability, not only raising questions about how priorities were set, but also about how the state tracks these payments.

The range of appropriations awarded to various municipalities is wide. East Baton Rouge Parish received the highest amount at $13.5 million, while parishes like Tensas and Red River received less than $50,000. The top ten recipients were:

  1. East Baton Rouge Parish – $13.5 million
  2. Orleans Parish – $12.5 million
  3. Rapides Parish – $11.7 million
  4. Jefferson Parish – $8.5 million
  5. Lafayette Parish – $7 million
  6. Ouachita Parish – $4.8 million
  7. Landry Parish – $4.5 million
  8. Tammany Parish – $4.1 million
  9. Calcasieu Parish – $4 million
  10. Winn Parish – $3.7 million

Parishes with legislators in key leadership positions at the Louisiana Capitol tend to receive more funds than those without such representation.

It’s worth noting that in total, $27.6 million in state taxpayer funds were awarded to local entities without any stated purpose or project description—a concerning lack of transparency for Louisiana taxpayers. Overall, the amount of funds given to favored local entities has made a significant jump in just the past five years. Seeing these amounts exceed the $100 million mark is now a regular occurrence.

Through Act 461, an enormous amount of taxpayer money collected by the State of Louisiana was again spent on projects that many would consider non-essential or an inappropriate redistribution of taxpayer dollars across the state. Thankfully, lawmakers approved one measure to add greater transparency and accountability for funding to non-governmental organizations through Act 467, which began as Senate Bill 245 by Senator Heather Cloud. This new law provides for a new searchable database of funded projects and allocations, as well as requirements for organizations that receive funding.

While a positive step forward, Act 467 still leaves the door open to significant taxpayer funding of non-government organizations and does not address funding to local governments. Louisiana’s tradition of funding local governments through the political process has only grown more costly in recent years, incentivizing towns, cities, and parishes to vie for and rely on state funding rather than plan and manage local revenues responsibly—or better yet, reform the state’s tax code to return power to local leaders and voters to fund priorities instead of having the state collect and then redistribute funds via a behind-the-scenes political process.

Reining in pork spending, prioritizing state dollars for statewide needs, and positioning the state for greater fiscal stability and economic competitiveness in future legislative sessions would better serve all Louisianans—many of whom still wait anxiously for meaningful tax relief and the opportunity to thrive right here at home.