A clear signal that Mississippi’s campaign season has opened came Monday in the House of Representatives, when lawmakers agreed to quadruple a proposed $1,000 increase in the pay scale for teachers.
Republicans in charge of the Legislature have been tight-fisted when it comes to pay. Prior to the session, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Phillip Gunn were quoted as saying they would raise teacher pay if they can afford it.
““Anything we do in that arena is going to be a function of dollars and whether or not revenues exist,” Gunn told the Clarion-Ledger in a Jan. 3 story.
That’s typically a clear sign that legislators are going to say no. But the pressure has been building on legislators ever since.
The Senate a few weeks ago approved a bill that gave teachers a pair of $500 increases over two years, but Democrats and school supporters panned it as insufficient.
Clearly a report that the state expects to end its budget year in June with a surplus of $193 million made a difference in the debate. Still, it was a surprise when enough Republicans in the House agreed to a Democratic proposal for two increases of $2,000 — four times more than what the Senate approved.
The effort to kill the $2,000 raise failed by five votes because 11 Republican lawmakers voted to keep it alive and another nine did not vote. After that, their peers jumped on board. The amended bill, which would increase the teacher pay scale by a total of $4,000 two years from now, passed 111-2.
Assuming the bill survives, the House and Senate will need to resolve their differences on it, so the $4,000 increase may be reduced. But it’s very likely the end result will be a raise of much more than the Senate’s original $1,000.
If improved tax collections played a role in the House vote, so did concern among Republicans about how they would look in an election year if they voted down a better raise than what the Senate was willing to give teachers.
Of course, this creates other problems for lawmakers. What are other state employees, most of whom have not had a raise in the past two years, supposed to think? And what about the likely harping from critics, who will say that a state with so many below-average schools should not reward its teachers?
The first question is for lawmakers to handle. The slow but steady trend of reducing the number of state employees may provide money to help them in the future.
As for school critics, it is certainly true that Mississippi has its problems. Too many districts carry C, D or F ratings. But has it occurred to anyone that part of the reason for this is because the state has a hard time attracting capable and committed teachers?
Mississippi’s not an island, and teachers who want better pay can find it in other states. The proper way to look at this week’s House action is that it’s an effort to keep up with what the neighbors are doing.
