BATON ROUGE mdash; The research director at Louisiana's Public Affairs Research Council said Thursday that state lawmakers were told there's an estimated $565 million budget surplus from the budget year that ended in June.nbsp;Melinda Deslatte says Joint Budget Committee lawmakers were told about t he surplus.The surplus came from the constitutional limiting of how the money can be spent when lawmakers appropriate it in the next session, she notes.ANOTHER BUDGET SURPLUS: Louisiana lawmakers (on the Joint Budget committee) were told there's an estimated $565 million surplus from the budget year that ended June 30. The constitution limits how the money can be spent when lawmakers appropriate it in the next session. #lalegemdash; Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) October 15, 2026Deslatte said a quarter of the surplusmdash;$141 millionmdash;must be used to pay down retirement debt."Another quarter of the surplus must go to the state 'rainy day' fund," Deslatte noted.nbsp;She said that lawmakers can decide how they want to spend the remaining money on certain one-time items like debt payments and construction.Permalink| Comments ...read more read less