The Senate just passed a $1,000 teacher pay raise. Advocates will likely lobby for more.

The Mississippi Senate is offering to pay a $1,000 teacher pay raise in two lump sums in hopes of addressing advocates’ concerns that a two year phase-in would be spread too thin.

Legislators on Wednesday unanimously passed Senate Bill 2770.

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The legislation authored by Senate Education Chairman Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, puts the state’s public school teachers, long among the nation’s lowest paid, in line for their first across-the-board pay raise in three years. More than 30,000 educators, including teacher’s assistants, librarians and guidance counselors would see raises under the bill.

“Over the past eight years, we have targeted the investment of tax dollars into the classroom,” Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said in a statement. “This bill spends about $51 million on teachers and other personnel who help educate Mississippi children. With this law, a teacher who worked in the classroom in 2012 will make almost $8,000 more per year by 2020.”

Leading up to Wednesday, lawmakers faced pressure from several teacher allies, including the state’s largest teacher union, to offer a better deal.

At times, Tollison went on the defensive by arguing that the state’s teacher salary scale, which dictates what certified educators must earn at a minimum, only partly determines how much teachers receive because school districts often offer local bonuses topping the state’s amount. Tollison also noted that teachers can earn up to $10,000 more by obtaining a national board certification and teaching in certain hard-to-staff district.

Citing figures from the state Department of Education showing that the average Mississippi teacher makes $44,926, Tollison pushed back against claims that Mississippi educators earn the lowest teacher salaries in the nation.

“I think there’s some national organizations that do everything they can to make our teacher salaries as low as they can be,” he said.

When questioned by Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, about where the state’s average teacher salaries rank nationally, Tollison ceded that the state’s ranking was likely in the low 40s.

“We’re going in the right direction, but we’re not meeting the goals that we need,” Jordan said. “The snail’s pace worries me. I’m concerned about the adjacent states that are pulling (teachers) away from us. I’m sick and tired of us being 50th. We might have to tighten some belts, but I don’t know of anything more important than education.”

In a statement, the Legislative Democratic Caucus criticized the pay hike under consideration, calling the proposal  "embarrassing"  and "a disgrace."

"We must provide an immediate pay bump and recalibrate the pay scale so we can begin paying our teachers the Southeastern average," the caucus said in a statement. "Otherwise, we will continue to see Mississippi-trained educators fleeing the state for higher pay and better resources."

An amendment by Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, to double the pay proposal by eliminating a teacher merit pay program that costs the state more than $20 million annually, failed.

A proposed change from Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, and Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch, to replace the bill’s two-year phase in with two lump sums to be paid out in December 2019 and December 2020 secured bipartisan agreement.

Disappointment with the bill was evident in the Capitol on Thursday as the Mississippi Association of Educators distributed Valentine's Day cards to lawmakers challenging the proposal's amount.

 "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Don't you think a legitimate pay is due?," one card read.

Members of the teacher's union later watched from the fourth floor gallery as The Great Mississippi Teachers Act of 2019, which included a $1,000 teacher pay raise died in the House, after a procedural effort by Rep. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, to bring the bill up for a vote and raise the pay raise to $3,500 failed.

In addition to a salary increase, the legislation authored by Rep. Charles Busby, R-Pascagoula, included proposals envisioned to alleviate the state's teacher shortage. 

A concern from leaders of the state's retirement system about a measure in the bill that would have allowed retired teachers to return to the classroom while collecting their pensions was cited as a key reason for the legislation's death.

House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, said the agency forwarded a legal review advising that making the change could cause a conflict with federal tax laws.

"We've got to work through that," he said.

House leaders still expect to visit the issue of a teacher pay raise this session as the Senate's bill advances for consideration.

"We're still looking at it," House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, said after adjournment. "You don't have to have a bill to do a pay raise. You can do that during appropriations. That (negotiation) depends on revenue that dictates if we can have one and how much it is."