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Lawmakers OK teacher stipend plan
Court temporarily blocks Landry’s executive order BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer
Louisiana lawmakers approved Gov. Jeff Landry’s plan to cut nearly $170 million from school budgets to pay for teacher stipends, according to vote tallies released Wednesday, though a court has temporarily blocked the plan
from taking effect. More than two-thirds of members in both chambers of the Legislature voted in favor of reducing the state’s main education fund by $168 million, which requires legislative approval. Under Landry’s executive order, that money would instead be used to give $2,000 stipends to teachers and $1,000 to
some support staffers. Louisiana educators have received the stipends the past three years instead of raises. After voters rejected a ballot measure in May to finance permanent raises, teachers were set to lose the stipends this school year before Landry proposed using state education funds to pay for them.
“While working towards a permanent solution to raise our teacher pay in Louisiana, the Legislature clearly did not want to see a reduction in teacher pay this year,” Senate President Cameron Henry and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier said in a joint statement Wednesday. In the House, 76 of 105 members voted for the funding cut, while eight members voted against it, one abstained and 20 members did
not vote, according to the official tally. The “no” votes were cast by Democrats and Rep. Neil Riser, a Republican who represents several rural parishes where school leaders have said the state funding cut could devastate their budgets. In the Senate, 37 of 39 members voted in favor of the funding reduction, while Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, cast the lone
ä See STIPEND, page 4A
Central pastor defends attacking neighbor
Tony Spell says man had been threatening family BY OLIVIA TEES
Staff writer
The Rev. Tony Spell stood on the steps of his church in Central on Wednesday — a day after being arrested for allegedly beating up his neighbor’s 20-year-old son — and defended his actions, comparing himself to a shepherd protecting his flock. Spell said the neighbors, who live across the street from his Life Tabernacle Church on Hooper Road, have been terrorizing him and his congregation for months. “I fulfilled Just before the fistfight, the the scripture, 20-year-old man threatened because I laid to rape and kill his family, claimed. hands on the Spell Scott Sherwin, the father sick. I don’t of the 20-year-old, countered know how after the news conference much recovery that his son wouldn’t have they’re going said something like that, let loud enough for Spell to have, but I alone to hear across four lanes of laid hands on traffic. them.” “You know what I think?” he said. “I should buy my REV. TONy SPELL son a megaphone because I know he didn’t hear across the highway.” Sherwin said his son was in the front yard checking whether the grass was dry enough to mow and had done nothing to provoke Spell. At the news conference, Spell said that as a “natural protector to my wife and to my grandchildren who were threatened murder, who were threatened rape, I have an obligation to protect them.”
PHOTO By MICHAEL BACIGALUPI
Life Tabernacle Church pastor Tony Spell, right, speaks to media Wednesday alongside his attorney Witten Brink at the ä See PASTOR, page 4A church in Central.
Letlow, Fleming down to wire in Senate Republican primary BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
In the final days of an increasingly divisive Senate Republican campaign, the race has come down to this: Can President Donald Trump and the avalanche of negative ads against treasurer John Fleming
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stem his momentum and give U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow the victory on Saturday? Polls show that Fleming has erased most or all of Letlow’s 17-point advantage coming out of the May 16 primary. “It’s dog close,” said Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans pollster who has
is stepping up his push for Letlow, and outside groups are launching a barrage of attacks against the treasurer. Fleming said those moves indicate done weekly surveys for super lobbyist Alton Ashy, a Letlow contribu- his political strength. “They wouldn’t be doing this if tor. With Fleming mounting a surä See PRIMARY, page 4A Letlow prisingly strong challenge, Trump
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