Lawmakers pass largest teacher pay raise in Mississippi history

by Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
March 22, 2022

The state House on Tuesday passed the largest teacher pay raise in state history — one that kept growing as the House and Senate haggled — on to the governor.

“This has been like making sausage — it's not pretty, but the end result is pretty good,” House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, said before the House voted 118-4 to send a $246 million teacher raise to Gov. Tate Reeves.

The average annual teacher raise will be $5,140, and the raise will begin for the 2022-2023 school year. Starting teacher pay will increase from $37,123 to $41,638, putting Mississippi above the southeastern and national averages.

Mississippi's teacher pay by several metrics is the lowest in the nation, and the state has struggled to recruit and retain teachers.

The raise grew from about $210 million early in this year's legislative session to $246 million as the House and Senate haggled over details. The final bill includes annual step increases for teachers of at least $400 and larger pay bumps of $1,200 to $1,350 every five years — a component Senate leaders pushed for.

The raise will be implemented in a single year, as the House proposed, not over two years as in the original Senate plan. The bill also includes a $2,000 raise for teacher assistants.

Reeves' office on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for comments on passage of the raise, but he is expected to sign it into law. Reeves, when campaigning for governor in 2019, promised to raise teacher's pay. This year he had proposed a smaller raise of $3,300, spread out over three years.

The House and Senate deal on the teacher raise bill marks a rare agreement on major issues this legislative session. House and Senate leaders have been in a standoff over tax cuts, which has threatened to derail other legislation as the 2022 session enters its final weeks. Education advocates had feared the teacher raise would get caught up in the tax fight.

Earlier in the session, the House killed the Senate pay raise bill without a vote. The Senate reluctantly passed the House bill after making changes to keep the pay raise alive.

Antonio Castanon Luna, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Educators, on Tuesday praised lawmakers final passage of the raise, and said it's a “double investment.”

“It's an investment in the future of Mississippi, and an investment in our state right now,” Luna said. “We will be able to recruit teachers to our classrooms now and for years to come, which will help our students. And it will provide a more educated workforce, a better prepared workforce for the future of Mississippi.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.