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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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W e d n e s d ay, M ay 27, 2026
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La. wants more money for fortified roof grants
2026 LEGISLATURE
Lawmakers see bill as way to ease insurance rates
BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Gov. Jeff Landry discusses the Louisiana Constitution and how it affects policymaking during a news conference about teacher pay raises at the State Capitol on Tuesday.
Landry: Teachers to get temporary raise
But it’s not clear where funding will come from
BY PATRICK WALL
Staff writer
Louisiana will give public school teachers a one-time pay bump this year, Gov. Jeff Landry said Tuesday, though he declined to explain how the state will pay for stipends that top lawmakers ä Senate passes previously said the state could budget with pay not afford. raises for judges, Educators firefighters, prison had been bracing to lose the guards. PAGE 6A $2,000 stipends for teachers and $1,000 for school support staff, which the state has given them the past three years in lieu of permanent raises, after the state Legislature advanced a budget plan last week that did not include the pay bumps. Landry said he and lawmakers will look for money for the stipends, which cost about $200 million this fiscal year, but he did not say where the money will come from. “We’re going to try to use every
ä See GRANTS, page 7A
STAFF PHOTO By JILL PICKETT
House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, right, and Senate President Cameron Henry said Tuesday they believe the Legislature ‘can forge a path’ to provide funds for teacher stipends this year. tool in the toolbox to try to find that also announced a plan to potentially money,” he said at a news conference overhaul the state’s school-funding Tuesday with state Senate President system. Cameron Henry and House Speaker ä See TEACHER, page 6A Phillip DeVillier. The state leaders
Starting EBR teachers may get a $6K bump Increase in parish’s budget proposal BY CHARLES LUSSIER
Staff writer
Public schoolteachers in East Baton Rouge Parish may be in line for big pay raises, including $6,000 more a year for starting teachers, according to the school system’s proposed budget for next school year. That $56,000 a year starting teacher salary, up from $50,000 a year now, would make the school district one of the highest paying in the state — sixth out of 69. Starting teachers
Louisiana may soon get a massive influx of money for a widely touted solution to ever-rising home insurance rates: Fortified roofs. State lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill that would add significantly more money to the grant program that gives Louisiana homeowners $10,000 each toward a new fortified roof. The cash would come from excess funds collected by Citizens, the state-created insurer of last resort, and is expected to net an extra $50 million for the program, enough for 5,000 additional roofs — on top of the $30 million the program gets annually. In all, the program would have enough money for 8,000 new fortified roofs this year, nearly double the number completed so far through the grant. To date, the Louisiana Department of Insurance has certified 4,800 roofs through the program. The plan would provide a long-sought boost to a strategy that leaders hope will pull the state out of a yearslong crisis that has pushed homeowners to the brink and threatened their ability to afford their homes. With climate change making hurricane risk worse, stronger roofs have proved to be an antidote by lowering the risk of storm winds tearing off a roof, making it less likely insurers will have to pay out claims.
would also jump from seventh to second in the Baton Rouge region, second only to Iberville Parish schools, where teachers currently start at $60,506 a year. Other school employees, particularly bus drivers, would receive sizable increases in pay under the proposed new district budget, released over the Memorial Cole Day weekend. However, salaries for Central Office administrators wouldn’t change. Neither would salaries for cafeteria workers, who won large pay increases in recent years. The teacher raises, if approved,
would be the fulfillment of a promise made by Superintendent LaMont Cole to significantly boost employee pay. It’s a promise that goes back to when Cole was hired in July 2024 to run Louisiana’s second-largest traditional school district. If approved by the parish school board — the final vote is scheduled for June 11 — the pay increases would take effect July 1, the start of the 2026-27 fiscal year. The first budget hearing is scheduled for June 4.
ä See STARTING, page 3A
Jason Zhang, president and co-founder of Applied Digital, discusses the company’s plans to build an artificial intelligence factory campus near the town of Boyce.
Officials tout a ‘paradigm shift’ for La.
Texas company to build data center near Alexandria BY ADAM DAIGLE
Acadiana business editor
Referring to it as a “paradigm shift” for the central Louisiana economy, state and local officials on Tuesday announced a $3.6 billion data center in Rapides Parish that is expected to create 200 jobs that will pay three times the state’s average wage. Applied Digital, a Texas-based company that designs, builds and operates high-performance data centers, plans to build an artificial intelligence factory campus near the town of Boyce.
ä See DATA, page 3A
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