JACKSON, Miss.—If Eric Irvin had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t have chosen to teach in Mississippi because of the state’s low salaries for educators. Instead, he would have moved to Memphis, Tennessee, or Atlanta, Georgia, or a city in Texas to make more money.
The math teacher of 35 years said he chose the Magnolia State because he loved the kids and wanted to help educate them. Irvin described buying school supplies, toiletries and clothing for his students using his own money and coming to school on Saturdays to assist with academic testing.
“It’s like these people don’t care about us and what we’re doing,” the Jackson, Mississippi, resident said at a campaign event for U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Scott Colom at the Medgar Evers Library in Jackson, Mississippi, on April 6.
Colom, who is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in November’s election, proposed that teachers and police officers making under $75,000 in the U.S. should not have to pay federal taxes, citing educators and cops quitting their respective professions to make more money in other fields.
“If you do not have teachers teaching the future, you do not have a functioning government. If you do not have cops to keep the community safe, you don’t have a functioning government,” he said at his campaign event in Jackson. “Now, I respect all government workers, but those two are essential, and they’re two professions we’re losing in Mississippi.”
Katrena Hunter, an educator of 27 years at the Rankin County Public School District, told the Mississippi Free Press that she approved of Colom’s tax proposal, noting that just about every K-12 classroom teacher in Mississippi would be impacted by the tax cut.
‘We Don’t Do This For Money’
The Mississippi Legislature passed a $2,000 K-12 teacher pay raise and Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law this legislative session despite earlier proposals to raise teacher salaries by $5,000 or $6,000. Mississippi Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, blamed the increased state Medicaid budget—caused by President Donald Trump’s budget cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—as the reason why teachers did not receive a higher raise.
But Mississippi must pay teachers more if the state wants to recruit and retain them, and the $2,000 raise that the governor signed into law isn’t going to cut it, Katrena Hunter said at the campaign event.
“That $2,000 raise will probably average to Chick-fil-A every other week for a Mississippi educator, so it sounds good when you’re taking a number,” she said during Colom’s event. “I just want more people to know: We don’t do this for money.”
“I think we’re an easy group to say no to because we don’t have unions and different things,” Hunter told the Mississippi Free Press on April 6. “There’s probably never going to be a time when every teacher is going to walk out. They aren’t threatened. They know that some teachers are going to stay in Mississippi.”
Assistant teachers, school psychologists and occupational therapists will receive 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.
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.
Teachers with master’s degrees and 18 years of experience make $77,000 in Memphis, Tennessee, while Hunter with her master’s degree and 27 years of experience get her a $67,000 salary in Rankin County, Mississippi, she said at the Colom campaign event.
“If you have a young person who is seeing those numbers, Mississippi has zero incentive for those young people to stay here,” Hunter said at the event on April 6. “So, we have to find a way, not with just salary, maybe loan repayment, maybe different things to have those educators stay in Mississippi.”
Comparing Judges’ Raises to Teachers Akin to ‘Apples and Oranges’
Meanwhile, the Legislature enacted $11,000 to $13,000 raises for the state’s Supreme Court justices, Court of Appeals judges, chancery court judges and circuit court judges. Their respective new salaries and raise amounts starting in 2027 are as follows.
- Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—$194,171
- A $12,680 raise
- Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court—$190,614
- A $13,877 raise
- Associate Justice of the Supreme Court—$187,625
- A $13,825 raise
- Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals—$182,624
- A $13,275 raise
- Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals—$179,871
- An $11,404 raise
- Chancery Judge—$171,063
- A $13,063 raise
- Circuit Judge—$171,063
- A $13,063 raise
The pay raise for judges will cost the State a little over $1 million, while the teacher pay raise will run the state $108 million.
“I think it’s literally insane that nobody thinks or conceives that every career is built on the back of a teacher,” Katrena Hunter told the Mississippi Free Press. “That judge was inspired to be a judge when he was in law school—all of that was built on the back of a teacher. And they don’t see that the base of where every career that makes Mississippi sustain the way it does comes from education.”
The salary increases the Legislature approved for the judges were the lowest salaries that the State Personnel Board recommended “based on cost of living and other states,” Senate Judiciary A Chairman Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, said when introducing the conference report for House Bill 1752 on the Senate floor on March 31.
Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, expressed concerns over the discrepancy between teachers’ and judges’ respective pay raises.
“You’re saying that our judges, with the cost of living, are presently at 27th in the country?” he asked Wiggins on the Senate floor.
“Based on the information that we were provided by SPB when we asked for that, yes,” Wiggins responded.
“And what are our teachers?” McLendon inquired.
“I would defer, but you know, we’re in the range of $53,000 or something,” Wiggins replied. “But let me be fair, I think I know where you’re going. I mean, there are fewer justices and judges across the country and the SPB was comparing what I’d call the supreme courts of each of the states, and when we got that information, the salaries were within a range. So, in one instance, I guess we’re saying where you’re going is it may be apples to oranges. And we were looking at apples to apples. However, I do think your point is well taken about where our teachers are and what we have.”
“And I think it’s definitely spot on to say apples because you know you give the apple to the teacher,” McLendon said. “But I don’t think they’re getting the apple. I think they’re not even getting the apple seed, but yet, we’re giving some of our highest-paid employees … ($13,000).”
The House approved the judge pay raise bill by a 109-3 vote on Feb. 5, and the Senate passed it by a 51-0 vote on March 10. Both bodies approved the conference report of the bill on March 31 and the governor signed it into law on April 13.
