JACKSON, Miss.—Mississippi K-12 teachers, teachers’ assistants and special-education teachers are set to receive a smaller pay raise than initially expected due to Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
After the Mississippi House and Senate made final conference negotiations over the weekend, the results left teachers with a $2,000 pay raise—a far cry from the House’s most recent $5,000 proposal and the Senate’s $6,000 proposal. Assistant teachers, school psychologists and occupational therapists will also see a $2,000 raise. Special education teachers teaching special education classes will get a $4,000 raise and school attendance officers will receive a $5,000 raise.
“Did the House work to try to get the pay raise that the House passed at $5,000?” Mississippi House Minority Leader Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, asked House Appropriations E Committee Chairman Rep. Karl Oliver, R-Winona, on the House floor on Monday.
“We worked within the confines of our budget that we had available to provide any pay raises,” Oliver replied.
“So when we passed a $5,000 pay raise, was that pay raise within the confines of the budget at the time we passed it?” The House minority leader inquired.
“It was in the confines of the discussion (at the time),” the chairman responded.
Johnson made a motion to recommit the bill for further conference work, but the House rejected his proposal.
All of the pay raises will collectively cost the state budget $108 million, Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, said during the introduction of the conference report for the appropriations bill for the Mississippi Department of Education, House Bill 1935.
“I know that earlier in the year we passed a teacher pay raise that stair stepped in three years and then the House passed it on their side, it was just a straight number of $5,000,” Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, asked DeBar on the Senate floor on Sunday. “Is there any agreement in this or is there any additional (raises) for upcoming years?”
“No, it’s just a one year increase of $2,000,” the chairman responded. “You know, with the way things are, the revenues and expenditures we got, you heard about Medicaid and so forth, and you know about PERS and all the other expenditures we’re having. There’s nothing that says we can’t do a pay raise next year; however, we didn’t want to lock ourselves into something now that we couldn’t fund. And we didn’t want to cut somewhere (or) raise taxes. We wanted to be prudent and that’s why we only went with one year at this point in time.”
The Senate passed the conference report of the Mississippi Department of Education’s budget on Sunday, and the House passed it on Monday.
The State budget for the 2027 fiscal year is $225 million higher than 2026’s budget, with 2027 coming in at $7.36 million and 2026 being $7.14 million. The Mississippi Division of Medicaid will receive $165 million extra from the State, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, said on the Senate floor on Sunday. He added that since Mississippi did not expand Medicaid, the State will save a little more money compared to states that expanded Medicaid.
“(With) the Medicaid (budget), we knew there was a big number at first, but like in years past, we felt like maybe that would come down quite a bit,” Hopson told reporters on Sunday. “It did come down some, but it didn’t come down to a point where we felt like there’s room to be able to fund much more than Medicaid and education increases.”
Alongside raising salaries, DeBar said the State will hire nine more school attendance officers, which would result in having one officer per 4,000 students. Raising school attendance officers’ salaries and hiring nine more will cost the state budget $1 million, he added.
The Parents’ Campaign Executive Director Nancy Loome said she shared disappointment with educators across the state: the $2,000 pay raise isn’t nearly enough to retain and recruit teachers.
“While any pay raise is helpful, this is very disappointing news,” she said in a March 27 statement. “A $2,000 pay raise is unlikely to stem the exodus of teachers from the classroom or to attract new teachers into the profession. For the moment, this increase will leave Mississippi teachers’ starting pay $4,700 behind that of neighboring states, and our average teacher pay overall about $3,000 behind that of our neighbors, though those states likely will continue passing their own raises, further widening the gap. Mississippi’s public school teachers—among the best in the country—deserve better.”