Louisiana voters rejected Amendment 5 on Tuesday, according to unofficial results, which keeps in place a rule that state retirement systems apply one-time money from the state to their oldest unfunded debts first. Ballotpedia’s tally shows 526,531 votes in favor, or 38%, and 874,544 against, or 62%. Because the amendment failed, nothing in the Constitution changes.
The vote was not a verdict on anyone’s pension check. Amendment 5 dealt with the order in which a retirement system pays down its unfunded accrued liability, the gap between the benefits a system has promised and the money it has set aside. The Legislative Auditor’s actuary found that the change would make no changes to retirement benefits.
That is the short answer for a Louisiana state employee, teacher or retiree who wondered whether the vote touched a pension: the amendment was about the sequence of debt payments, not about benefits or contributions. What remains is how the rule works and what lawmakers wanted to change about it.
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What is the oldest-first rule?
Louisiana’s Constitution, in Article VII, Section 10(D)(2)(b)(iii), makes the legislature appropriate at least 25% of the nonrecurring money in the Revenue Estimating Conference’s official forecast to state retirement systems for their unfunded accrued liability. The digest of Act 606, the measure that put Amendment 5 on the ballot, says the receiving system must apply that money to its “oldest UAL first.” Nonrecurring money means one-time dollars, such as a surplus, rather than the state’s regular yearly contributions. The act refers to the receiving system’s “positive amortization bases,” the separate layers of debt created over the years, and the rule says to retire them in the order they were created, from oldest to newest.
The ballot question, as BallotReady’s listing shows it, asked whether a system could apply that money to “any” of its unfunded accrued liability instead. With the amendment defeated, the order stays oldest to newest. The 25% floor and the bar on using these payments to fund cost-of-living increases were never part of the question, according to the enrolled act, and they stay as they are.
Who wanted the change?
House Bill 27 was written by Rep. McMakin. The Webster Parish Journal’s guide to the ballot says that a yes vote would have let systems choose which unfunded pension debt to pay first when extra one-time state money arrived, and that supporters argued it would allow smarter financial planning. A no vote, the guide says, keeps the requirement to pay the oldest debt first.
The digest does not give a rationale of its own and names no individual retirement system. The actuarial note lists the affected group only as all state public retirement systems, so the rule applies across the board rather than to one pension fund. Voters who rejected it were not choosing between systems, only whether the Constitution should keep dictating the order. The Webster Parish Journal lists state retirement systems, retirees and taxpayers as the groups affected by the question.
Did the vote carry a price tag?
No. Kenneth J. Herbold, the actuary for the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, wrote in a note dated Feb. 27 that the bill would have no measurable effect on retirement-related costs or revenues over five years, with every state expenditure and revenue line in the table at $0. A second note, dated May 29, again found no measurable fiscal effect on retirement systems or state government. Neither note puts a dollar amount on the unfunded accrued liability, and Herbold’s February note says nonrecurring money is excluded from the contribution estimates, which helps explain why the rule shows up as zero in the tables.
Herbold’s note adds one wrinkle. If the legislature gave no instructions on how to apply the one-time money, each system would have needed its own allocation policy, an impact the note says cannot be measured in actuarial terms. That is what a yes vote would have handed to the systems, and what the 62% no vote left with the Constitution. The results are unofficial until the state certifies them.
What does a failed amendment mean for a pension planner?
For anyone drawing a Louisiana public pension, the vote changes nothing about the monthly payment, and the actuary’s note says the change would not have altered benefits. What stays in force is the funding side: the 25% of nonrecurring money that goes to the systems and the order in which it is applied. A later legislature could try again, but it would need another amendment and another statewide vote.
A pension is one stream among several in retirement, and the vote leaves the others, from taxes on withdrawals to Medicare costs and the interest on savings, where they were. The planning that matters for a pensioner heading into 2027 sits in those pieces, since the Constitution’s debt rule did not change and does not need to be watched this winter.
Is your pension income planned for 2027?
The vote on the retirement systems’ debt order changed nothing in a pension check, which leaves the pieces of retirement income that do move: taxes on withdrawals, Medicare costs and savings that earn little. A state pension covers a lot of a household’s income, but it does not cover the leaks around it.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
