Good evening! Three stories tonight that, taken together, tell you something about what governments are choosing to fund right now.

In Louisiana, the Senate Finance Committee advanced a revised budget Thursday that pulls back funding for K-12 districts and locks in pay cuts of $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for support workers, while finding $18.6 million more for raises for state correctional officers. Voters rejected a constitutional amendment on Saturday that would have guaranteed the educator raises, and lawmakers decided not to backfill it. Gov. Landry had said earlier in the week that no state workers would get a raise if teachers didn't. The prison guard line item suggests otherwise.

In Washington, NPR's Cory Turner reports that the Office of Federal Student Aid is in a hiring boom — adding roughly 380 workers to a team that lost about half its staff in last year's reduction-in-force. FSA manages a $1.7 trillion loan portfolio, 43 million borrowers, and the FAFSA. As one union official put it, the new postings can almost all be traced back to jobs that were cut. The Department is being dismantled and rebuilt simultaneously, sometimes in the same office.

And in Charlottesville, UVA is launching AI4VA — pairing 130 students trained through Google's AI Professional Certificate with local small businesses, nonprofits, and public agencies for six-week projects this summer. Vice Provost Kemi Jona framed it as a response to a tough job market and the reality that AI skills on a resume now matter for student competitiveness. It's a small program with a clear theory: the businesses that can't afford consultants get the help, and the students get real problems to solve.

One quick note: We'll be off Monday for Memorial Day and back in your inbox on Tuesday.

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