BATON ROUGE - Lawmakers got their first look at Gov. Jeff Landry's plan for state spending for the next year at the Capitol on Thursday, which will be the starting point for debates during the legislative session.

Experts described the budget as boring, but it's stable with little movement. Spending, including state and federal funds, is about $45 billion. This is $1 billion less than the previous plan.

Steven Procopio says the reason for the flat budget is that Louisiana fixed the shortfall the state was facing.

"It wasn't full of all kinds of all kinds of big initiatives, but it also wasn't a ton of cuts," Procopio said.

He added that part of the reason for the flat budget is that lawmakers fixed the shortfall that the state was facing.

The initial report shows there's a $595 million surplus, but the money has to be spent a certain way.

"Some of that money will go to our state savings account," Procopio said. "Some of that will go to paying out retirement debt. The rest will be spent on construction projects, whether that's coastal projects, buildings, DOTD are all possible."

In March, voters will decide on a constitutional amendment that changes tax policy and would include a permanent pay raise for teachers and support staff, although it's being challenged in court.

Teachers already receive a stipend but the amendment would turn that into a permanent $2,000 pay raise. If the amendment doesn't pass, raises might not be possible.

"It's not in the governor's budget to have a teacher's pay raise," he said. "Now that doesn't mean there won't be. They'd have to find $200 million in the budget, and we already have a standstill budget. So finding another $200 million could be tough. They'd have to find cuts in other programs or they would have to raise revenue."