Originally Posted by
Crichton
No, it is not. It has no entry/field at all for Level Adjustment, which, according to the general rules for Template entries/fields, means the template doesn't modify that entry from what the original creature had.
As you say, the LA: - entry is for the sample Ghast, but the actual Template, on page 162, has no entry for LA. The default isn't either LA:0 or LA:- though. The default for Templates is that if a particular entry is missing from the Template, then the Template doesn't change that aspect of the original creature.