Article published Apr 12, 2005
Blanco: Medley of 'sin
taxes' to finance pay hike
BATON ROUGE - Unveiling a few more details about her tax proposals, Gov. Kathleen Blanco told the Baton Rouge Press Club that she wants to give pay raises to school support workers and lower-paid college faculty, as well as public school teachers.
To finance the $120 million education pay raise package, Blanco said she will ask for an $88 million, 50-cent-a-pack hike in cigarette taxes, $16 million in increases in beer, alcohol and liquor taxes and $16 million in hikes in video poker taxes.
The new taxes would fund annual pay raises of $1,000 for teachers, most of whom also will be getting an average of $350 a year in raises through additional funds budgeted for the Minimum Foundation Program, the state's basic aid to public schools.
Many of the "richer" parishes will not be getting more money, as the additional money for the MFP goes to "poorer" parishes, so not all teachers will be getting the hikes. School boards also have broad authority over the MFP-mandated raises.
Blanco said pay raises for school support workers, which she mentioned for the first time publicly, could be as high as $500 annually. While the college faculty pay raise package is still being worked on, Blanco said she wants to give raises to the lower-paid university faculty.
Louisiana student performance is improving, and more Louisiana teachers are obtaining national certification. The state demands a lot from its teachers, Blanco said. "I want a meaningful pay raises for them, even in this tough year," Blanco said.
The cigarette tax could generate much more, but Blanco would allow cigarette wholesalers to stockpile the tax certificates at existing tax rates, avoiding the increase for several months.
In addition, Blanco said she will ask legislators to change the point of collection on gasoline taxes to refineries, which would boost collections by some $15 million to $20 million. But that money is all dedicated to highway construction.
House Speaker Joe Salter, D-Florien, said he sat in on Blanco's recent private meetings with legislators in Alexandria and Shreveport, and reaction to her education pay raise tax package was positive. Some legislators are proposing tax increases on all tobacco products, not just cigarettes.
"A lot of legislators are saying if you're going to take a hit on a tax vote, you might as well get more out of it," Salter said.
"I think we've got a good shot on cigarettes. It will probably be a hard sell on the alcohol because the beer and liquor industries have very effective lobbyists who have been very successful in defeating those taxes in past," Salter said.
Senate President Don Hines, D-Bunkie, says there is a feeling among legislators that education pay raises are a necessity.
"We certainly need to do it. If we are going to have economic development, we are going to have to have better education. The way to do that is to pay our teachers more to keep the good teachers in the classroom and to attract the good students in college to education," Hines said. "Everybody I've talked to feels like we have to do something. We are at the bottom of the barrel."
Jim Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, the private, non-profit think tank, said it's obvious that Blanco's top priority for the legislative session opening April 25 is the tax package to raise education salaries.
"Based on what I'm hearing, it's still a tough sell, particularly if there are separate votes on the proposals," Brandt said.
Brandt said Blanco's session agenda appears to be limited in scope, indicating the governor will do as she did last year, and allow the issues to emerge, and then get
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