Columbus Dispatch. March 31, 2022.
Editorial: Teacher pay raise may not be enough to make Mississippi competitive
There has rarely been a more popular bill to come out of the Mississippi legislature than House Bill 530, which provides Mississippi’s public school teachers with their first substantial raise in 25 years. After the bill emerged from conference, the Senate passed the bill unanimously (51-0) while only five of 173 representatives opposed the measure.
To give a further idea of the bill’s popularity, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were scrambling to be identified as authors of the legislation. Fifty-six representatives, including local legislators Kabir Karriem (D, Columbus) and Dana McLean (R, Columbus) were listed as authors.
When the new law goes into effect in July, Mississippi teachers will see an average salary increase of $5,100 annually, roughly a 10% increase. It will be the largest teacher pay raise (at least by total dollars) in the state’s history. In 1988, Gov. Ray Mabus signed off on an 18% increase.
The bill also raises starting pay for teachers by $4,0000 and increases teacher assistant pay by $2,000.
There can be no serious poor-mouthing of the legislature’s action, of course. It’s a substantial raise.
It’s long overdue for our teachers, who have been historically among the lowest paid teachers in the nation and, most likely, will someday have that distinction again.
The raise closes, but does not eliminate, the gap between Mississippi teachers salaries and the Southeastern average. The new average salary in Mississippi will be around $52,000. The Southeast average is, at present, $55,000. Even with the increase, the average Mississippi teacher will make 22 percent less than the national average of $66,300.
Meanwhile, other states are working on teacher pay raises as well. The raise is important, certainly, but it may not prove to be the game-changer in hiring and retaining teachers that some of the legislators are crowing about.
Still, it’s the best thing the legislature has done for public education in memory.
Over the last decade, if not longer, the legislature has proven it is no friend of public education. It constantly plays footsie with right-wing lobbyists who push for state funding for private schools and annually fails to provide adequate funding according to its own funding formula. In 2015, the legislature sabotaged a citizen-led effort to demand the state properly fund its schools by constitutional amendment.
The pay raise represents a practical political reality. What legislators want most of all is to be re-elected. After years of ignoring pleas for a pay raise, legislators were feeling the heat. There are 37,600 public school teachers in the state. Most of them have spouses. All of them have friends and family who are voters. That’s a substantial voting bloc, one that could be no longer ignored.
With elections coming up next year, this pay raise was driven more by expediency than empathy.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t take another 25 years for Mississippi’s teachers to get the pay they deserve.
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Tupelo Daily Journal. April 3, 2022.
Editorial: Prioritize regional projects with ARPA spending
Mississippi lawmakers are finalizing spending plans for $1.8 billion in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. This money provides an unprecedented opportunity to invest in Mississippi’s local infrastructure in ways that will strengthen our communities and address decades’ old issues.
From the start, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has called for using these moneys on “generational projects.” He and Speaker Philip Gunn, along with other Senate and House leaders, have come up with proposals that would create matching grant programs for local entities, doubling the spending opportunities these local governments have from their own funds.
This is a smart plan, and we have praised it multiple times in the past. Now we are hoping that the state will go one step further. The state can encourage better regional development and cooperation by prioritizing projects that include multiple governing and geopolitical bodies, such as multi-county investments or cooperative projects between a county and the municipalities within it.
There are countless examples of these kinds of agreements, and most of them provide incredible success. Look at the efforts of Pontotoc, Lee and Union counties to form the PUL Alliance, which was the cornerstone of landing the Toyota plant in Blue Springs. By pooling resources, spending priorities and tax agreements, they made possible for the region what would have likely been impossible for any one of the counties alone.
Of course, not every regional cooperative effort has to be on the scale of landing an automotive manufacturer and still have a tremendous shared impact for a larger area. Broadband expansion, water and sewer upgrades, road funds, and tourism and recreational projects all can raise the profile, quality of life and economic opportunities of entire regions if multiple bodies work together.
Most of what has been discussed with ARPA spending is based on projects guided solely by a single local governing entity. There are a lot of needs, a lot of long wish lists and priorities that have sat idle for countless years. And regional projects take longer to design than local ones. All of that is understandable.
At the same time, that does not mean regional efforts should be ignored. By prioritizing such projects with some of the ARPA funds, it could help create generational change not just in the form of individual projects but by encouraging a new sense of regional cooperation throughout the state.
This could be accomplished in several ways, such as setting aside a certain percentage of funds for cooperative projects or increasing the matching percentages for regional efforts.
Whatever the case, ARPA funds provide what is likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to foster a new era of regional cooperation in Mississippi. The state would be foolhardy not to take advantage of it.
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