Every Mississippi lawmaker has voted so far to give teachers a pay raise. 

House Bill 1126, which was passed unanimously on Wednesday, would raise teachers’ annual salaries by $5,000. The Senate unanimously passed its own $2,000 teacher pay raise bill last month. Senate leaders said they want to increase that number by the end of the session. 

The House bill would increase the state’s minimum annual teacher salary from $41,500 to $46,500 and would also give special-education teachers another $3,000 a year. The House raise proposal would cost $225 million a year, according to House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville.

Mississippi educators have been asking for another raise since their last meaningful one in 2022, which teachers say was quickly eaten up by inflation and rising health insurance premiums. Mississippi teachers are, on average, the lowest paid in the country. The new rate would put Mississippi’s starting teacher salary right at the national average, according to the National Education Association. 

But the House bill also addresses another major complaint from educators, thanks to an amendment made during discussion on the House floor: Teachers going more than a month without a paycheck over the holidays. 

State law currently requires that teachers be paid by the end of their last working day in December, which can come early in the month. Then, most don’t receive another paycheck until the end of January. Educators say it can make the holiday season stressful, on top of trying to make ends meet on low pay. 

The bill, which was passed out of two House committees yesterday right before a deadline, would require that districts pay teachers at least once a month — up to twice a month — and remove the language that requires their December payday to be teachers’ last working day that month. That means teachers could get their December salaries later in the month, addressing that weeks-long gap between paychecks. 

The law could also pave the way for more districts to adopt bimonthly pay, which state law has allowed since 2022. Only four of Mississippi’s 138 school districts have adopted it, a Mississippi Today analysis found. 

Superintendents previously told Mississippi Today that paying teachers consistently through the holiday months could be a recruitment strategy in a state struggling to fill thousands of vacancies. 

The bill would allow lawmakers to give assistant teachers a pay raise in the future, though a raise isn’t included in the current language. A previous House Bill that included an assistant teacher raise was killed by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday afternoon. 

Roberson told Mississippi Today that lawmakers will try to hammer out the details for an assistant teacher raise later in the session. 

House Bill 1126 also addresses superintendents’ pay, which state leaders have increasingly scrutinized and claimed takes up a disproportionate amount of school funding. The bill would cap school superintendents’ maximum pay at 250% of what they would make as a teacher based on their experience, education and local district supplements.

The state’s base per-student spending would also increase by $500 under the bill to $7,447 per student. 

Also included in the legislation: Earlier retirement eligibility provisions for first responders and state employees, a program focused on improving underperforming districts and pay raises for school attendance officers, school psychologists and occupational therapists. 

The Senate and House now have each other’s teacher pay bills before them.