Local teachers’ pay schedule frozen

• By MARSHA SILLS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Jun 26, 2009 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — For the first time in several years, starting pay for teachers in Lafayette Parish isn’t budging, according to the district’s salary schedule.

Since the 2001-02 school year, starting pay for teachers in Lafayette has increased by 36 percent from $29,707 to $40,427 in 2008-09. Revenue from a 2002 half-cent sales tax has helped boost teacher salaries over the past few years.

But the economy and an expected decrease in sales tax revenue will keep next year’s salaries stagnant.

“With the economic situation the way it was, we couldn’t assure that the money would be there for perpetuity,” Superintendent Burnell Lemoine said.

State funding for public schools in Louisiana, the Minimum Foundation Program, also will remain the same for next school year as the Legislature this month voted to freeze the aid for the first time in a dozen years.

The teacher salary schedule for Lafayette Parish is set for approval at the School Board’s regular board meeting July 15.

Teachers will still receive the same step level increase — an average of about $400.

When the salary schedule was presented to the School Board at its meeting last week, Lafayette High teacher Melinda Mangham questioned the decision not to increase the pay schedule this year.

“When you’re talking about a $400 step, you’re talking about less than $35 a month,” Mangham said in a later interview. “I’m grateful for the step and that they’re holding their word and continuing to pay the step. This is not about my salary, because I’m out the door. But for us to attract bright, young people and retain them, we’re going to have a hard time doing it.”

The salary schedule also keeps the district slightly above average teacher pay when compared to other districts in Louisiana, which is not where the system promised voters that pay would be when the 2002 sales tax proposition was pushed, Mangham said.

According to the state Department of Education, Lafayette Parish ranked 17th among 69 school districts with an average teacher salary of $48,475 in the 2008-09 school year. St. Martin came in at No. 16 with an average teacher salary of $48,704.

Other Acadiana area school districts, including Iberia, Vermilion, St. Landry and Acadia, ranked lower than St. Martin and Lafayette in average teacher pay in the 2008-09 school year, according to the state Department of Education.

A half-cent sales tax approved by Vermilion Parish voters in May helped boost school employee pay there by 5 percent, said Charlotte Waguespack, assistant superintendent of personnel.