Legislative negotiators on Friday said they have agreed, after months of back-and-forth and considering larger amounts, that Mississippi teachers will get a $2,000 pay raise.
It’s an anticlimactic result to a teacher pay raise debate that, at one point weeks ago, saw dueling offers from the Senate and House that reached $6,000. The state’s educators, the lowest paid on average in the country, who have helped rocket Mississippi students to academic achievement that’s been nationally recognized say they’re disappointed.
“We’re certainly grateful for any type of raise, but everyone involved in this process knows this does not meet the standard of what educators both have earned and desperately need,” said Jason Reid, a longtime teacher in the DeSoto County School District. Reid drives a school bus before and after work to supplement his income.
Mississippi teachers last received a meaningful pay raise in 2022, but they say it was quickly eaten up by rising health insurance costs and inflation. Since then, educators told Mississippi Today that they’ve had to take second jobs and make tough financial decisions to scrape by. And educators largely attribute the ongoing and worsening teacher shortage to low pay.
The teacher pay debate has been a top issue of the 2026 legislative session. The Senate and the House passed their respective plans early in the year — first $2,000 from the Senate, with a promise of trying to raise the number later in the process, and $5,000 from the House. But as the weeks wound on, both chambers proceeded to kill each other’s bills.
Before the teacher pay bill went to negotiations, the Senate had landed on a $6,000 raise, spaced out in $2,000 increments over three years, while the House stuck with its one-time $5,000 raise.
However, after negotiations, it appears that Mississippi teachers are likely to only get a $2,000 raise — the Senate’s early proposal that the House said it wouldn’t agree to because it was too low. Special education teachers would get an extra $2,000 salary supplement — a total of $4,000.
House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, a Republican from Starkville and one of the negotiators on the compromise plan, said he shares educators’ disappointment.
“I had some pretty grand ideas as to what we could do this year,” he said. “It is substantially less … it is what it is. You’re not able to do what you want to do.”
Roberson said the $5,000 House proposal came before budget talks. He said legislators were aware of hefty state retirement system costs, but were surprised by the state Medicaid agency’s request, which was $390 million more than the current year.
“They rolled in with a huge number,” he said. “We expected a decent size, but nobody expected the monster it ended up being. You have to fill in the blanks … this is unfortunately where we’ve landed.”
Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville and another one of the negotiators, also chalked the lower amount up to concerns about state spending.
“We had been pushing for a multi-year raise, but we also have to be fiscally responsible, and when we were talking with the House, we all had to consider Medicaid, PERS and all our other responsibilities,” DeBar said. “When we got into negotiations, we all agreed to budget only a one-time infusion for teacher pay.”
The plan also includes a $2,000 raise for school psychologists and occupational therapists, DeBar said. He said school attendance officers would get $5,000 raises, and that the agreement would add 9 new SAOs, “so we will have one for every 4,000 students.”
The lower raise amount is likely to draw fire from educators and advocates, who have watched state lawmakers credit the state’s academic gains to Republican policy and leadership over the past several months.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Nancy Loome, leader of The Parents’ Campaign, a public school advocacy organization. “Our teachers have done such tremendous work to move Mississippi forward. Our state has gotten so much positive national recognition for our work, and they are struggling to make ends meet.”
Lawmakers are expecting to vote on negotiated final budget bills on Sunday. Both the House and Senate would have to pass the pay raise plan, and there is a potential it could be sent for further negotiation.
“We can always address it again next year,” DeBar said. “Nothing says we can’t come back and revisit (a teacher raise) next year.”
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