Public school teacher pay raises will cost $18.5 million more than anticipated

Mississippi teacher pay raises will cost $18.5 million more than the original estimate.

The Mississippi Department of Education announced yesterday that nearly 10,000 more teachers and teacher assistants are eligible for the $1,500 raise passed by the state legislature last year.

All told, MDE has determined that 40,991 teachers and teacher assistants are eligible for the raise. The original count was 31,157.

Lawmakers allotted $58 million for teacher raises during the last legislative session, to go into effect July 1. After the raise passed, MDE “conducted an additional review of the total number of state-funded teaching positions,” the agency said in a statement. It discovered an undercount of almost 10,000 positions thought to have been federally funded, not state funded. Instead of federal funds covering the raises, Mississippi must pay them.

The additional cost to the state is $18.5 million, bringing the tab for the pay increases and associated benefits up to nearly $77 million.

Mississippi Superintendent of Education Carey M. Wright.

MDE says it “worked with districts to identify and verify every eligible state-funded position.” The expanded list of positions eligible for the pay raise includes specialized positions such as dyslexia therapists, intervention specialists, audiologists and psychologists, among others.

“This is the most comprehensive pay raise the Legislature has approved and is intended to provide Mississippi educators with a well-deserved raise,” Dr. Carey Wright, state superintendent of education said in a statement.

Previous teacher pay raises were allocated to districts through the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the state’s school funding formula. Based on input from district superintendents, this year MDE asked the legislature to appropriate the FY20 teacher pay raise as a separate line item from MAEP so that each school district could clearly see that adequate funds had been appropriated to cover the pay raise.

Because the raise is mandated by law, though, school districts must give teachers the raise regardless of whether the state provides the funds. MDE says that districts will be allocated enough money through the current appropriation to cover the monthly cost of the teacher pay raise. In January, MDE says will work with the legislature to secure a deficit appropriation to fully fund the raise.

Gov. Phil Bryant did not approve a special session to address the issue when it was first reported in April, calling it a waste of money. At that time, the shortfall was estimated to be in the vicinity of $12 million to $14 million.

House Education Committee Chairman Richard Bennett (R-Long Beach) pledged Republican support to cover the shortfall.

“The House leadership is supportive of funding this deficit and ensuring that the school districts will not be required to absorb any costs associated with the pay raise,” Bennett wrote Monday in a letter.