Mississippi lawmakers agree on $2,000 teacher pay raise

• “Tight state budget” given as reason for reduced amount of teacher pay raises after the House and Senate touted significantly higher competing proposals.

After both chambers proposed significantly higher teacher pay raises this session, lawmakers in the Mississippi House and Senate have reportedly reached an agreement on a $2,000 across the board K-12 public school teacher pay raise.

A conference report is expected to be filed Friday reflecting the agreement.

Legislators have also agreed to provide an additional $2,000 raise for special education teachers, speech therapists and school psychologists as well as for assistant teachers, House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson (R) told Magnolia Tribune.

Roberson said the raises will take place “all at once,” instead of in increments proposed by the Senate in one iteration of their plan earlier this session. Prior to conference, the Senate had proposed three years of $2,000 raises totaling $6,000. 

After lawmakers dug into appropriations bill, Roberson said “the state budget is tight,” meaning the larger raises considered by both the House and Senate had to be reduced. Medicaid is requesting nearly $400 million in increased funding this year.

State Senator Dennis DeBar (R), Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, told Magnolia Tribune earlier this week that the “tight state budget” would play a part in the final decision on where the teacher pay raises would ultimately end up.

As previously reported, the House initially proposed a $5,000 teacher pay raise, while the Senate proposed a $2,000 raise. The Senate then came back and proposed a total teacher pay raise of $6,000 in $2,000 increments phased in over three years. Both chambers also included additional raises for special education and other specialty positions.

The last increase for teachers came in 2022 when lawmakers bumped up their pay by $5,100. For every $1,000 increase, the amount equates to a roughly $50 million price tag for state taxpayers.

School attendance officers will also receive a pay raise under the compromise between the chambers. A $5,000 raise is included in the conference report along with appropriations for nine new SAOs. Rep. Roberson said those officers will be required to oversee the attendance of at least 4,000 students.

Additional discussions will be held to determine if those officers will continue to be housed under the Mississippi Department of Education or will be allocated to the local school districts where they work.

“We’ve got to make sure that these kids are in school,” Roberson said of the need for the school resource officer pay raises.

Both bodies plan to gavel back in Sunday at 2 p.m. to adopt conference bills and finalize the state budget as sine die nears.