Amendment 2 raises would come at school fund's expense

As a member of the Louisiana Senate in 1990, I led the fight to establish this savings account.

This was on my mind in 1999 when I considered how the Legislature would spend $4 billion paid to the state by the big tobacco companies. Most of this tobacco settlement would rightly be devoted to public health, but I argued that one-fourth of the settlement should go to education.

Just a few years before, I had worked with elected officials in Bossier Parish to budget $500,000 in proceeds from a state casino tax to education. The result was the Bossier Educational Excellence Fund. Thanks to BEEF, the Bossier Parish School Board has for decades deposited its casino revenue into a savings account and used the interest earned to fund classroom needs.

The result is that BEEF now has a secure balance of $70 million. The School Board invests the principal and uses interest earnings every year to pay for computers, art supplies and other classroom enhancements.

BEEF was my model for the Louisiana Educational Excellence Fund. With help from my fellow Democrat Randy Ewing, as well as Republican colleagues including John Hainkel and Jay Dardenne, the Legislature dedicated $1 billion of the $4-billion Tobacco Settlement to the EEF.

Thanks to that legislative foresight and the subsequent support of Louisiana voters in amending the State Constitution, the EEF fund now has a balance of $482 million. Interest earned on the balance pays for classroom needs in school systems throughout Louisiana each year.

One of the stated goals of Amendment No. 2 is to fund teacher pay raises. During my 27-year Senate tenure I recognized the challenges faced by our teachers and voted for every teacher pay raise.

Our teachers today need better pay, but it is foolish to fund raises by destroying a savings account that yields continuing benefits each year for school children in our public and private schools.

Don’t fool with a good thing. The Educational Excellence Fund is a good thing for our public and private elementary and secondary schools. Just vote “no” on Amendment No. 2.

Foster Campbell is a Louisiana Public Service commissioner.