Teacher raises offered
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Gov. Bobby Jindal proposed a $70 million public schoolteacher pay raise Wednesday as part of his first state government spending plan.
The increase would keep teacher pay at the Southern regional average, Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis said in a prepared statement.
Exactly what the pay raise would mean to teachers is unclear.
The $70 million includes about $56 million in new funding, which usually includes all teachers, and $14 million for teachers through an increase in basic state aid to public schools, which does not provide increases for all teachers, said Michael DiResto, spokesman for Davis’ agency.
A $56 million raise would total about $800 per year and $70 million about $1,000.
Others disputed whether the $70 million would be enough to maintain Louisiana at the regional average for a second year in a row.
“We are still behind,” said Tom Tate, lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Educators, which is one of the state’s two largest teacher unions.
Average pay for the current school year is $46,800, according to figures approved by the state Education Estimating Conference on Tuesday. The panel said that slightly exceeds the average of 16 states that make up the Southern Regional Education Board.
Tate said Jindal needs to boost his proposal to at least $1,500 per teacher, which would cost the state about $100 million per year.
Even that, Tate said, would merely increase average teacher pay during the 2008-09 school year to what the regional average was for 2007-08.
The LAE plans to ask for a $2,000, across-the-board pay raise for public school teachers.
Officials of the Education Estimating Conference said on Tuesday that it will take pay raises of 3 percent to 3.5 percent to keep Louisiana public school teachers at the average.
Those increases would be about $1,400 and $1,600 respectively.
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