Link legislative pay increase to teacher pay

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist

Tying Public Educator Salaries to Politicians’ Pay Would Insure Future Salary Increases.

In the coming weeks, the Louisiana House of Representatives will consider HB 149, which would raise state lawmakers’ base pay beyond the present $16,800 a year. The bill, authored by Rep. Joe Marino of Gretna, would hike salaries to $40,000 per year. Originally, Marino sought $60,000, arguing that due to inflation $16,800, the amount set in 1980, is now worth $64,000.

Rep. Richard Nelson of Mandeville, though, moved an amendment on May 2 in the House and Governmental Affairs Committee that would set the pay hike to 75 percent of the state median household income or $40,000. Thereafter, future legislative salaries would rise or fall based on La.’s median household salaries. The Gretna Representative endorsed the link to wage growth, stating “I didn’t contemplate that amendment, but I like it.”

Marino also added during the hearing that Gov. John Bel Edwards had promised to sign a bill that raises pay up to $50,000 a year, and while legislative work is often considered a part-time job, the National Conference of State Legislatures found that Louisiana legislators typically spend about 75 percent of their time on legislative work, or equivalent to the household income link. Moreover, this would put Pelican State Representative pay in line with nearby Alabama at $53,000 per year, and Arkansas at $44,000 per year—especially when the $161 per day per diems are included.

However, with an average 85 days in session each year, legislators typically earn $13,685 in per diems. Put another way, members of the House and Senate earn almost as much in just under three months – on top of their normal salaries – as a $7.25 per hour minimum wage worker in Louisiana earns in 12 months at 40 hours per week, or $13,920.

Efforts to boost the Louisiana minimum wage to $10 per hour by 2024 were killed in the House Labor Committee, 9-5, by many of the same legislators now seeking a pay raise—just one day after Marino’s bill was advanced 8-4 in Governmental Affairs. Likewise, the House Republican majority looks sure to reject Gov. John Bel Edwards’s proposal to boost teacher pay by $3,000 per year, out of concern that the State Treasury faces a large deficit next year – after years of federally-fueled pandemic surpluses and a .45 cent sales tax about to expire. (Instead, the La. House looks primed to consider a one-time contribution to under-financed public employee and educator retirement funds.)

Interestingly, ignored in this discussion is the fact that the average public school teacher pay in Louisiana amounts to $52,660. That stands as less than the combined legislative pay would be under Marino’s and Nelson’s proposal with per diems included, or $53,685. (Of course, few legislators have made any mention of the $6,000 in discretionary expenses or mileage reimbursements which House and Senate members can declare, and of which most educators could only dream.)

Using Nelson’s logic, there is a way for teacher pay advocates in the House Democratic minority to amend HB 149 to incentivize future legislatures to raise teacher salaries, and by corollary their own legislative pay – in a fashion that the GOP House majority would be hard-pressed to reject.

Instead of tying legislative pay to 75 percent of median household incomes, affix it to 75 percent of the average public school teacher salary. Legislators set educator salaries through the minimum foundation formula, after all; whereas they have little control over La. median household income. Three quarters of a regular teacher salary amounts to $39,495. Add $161 per diems at an average of 85 legislative workdays, and the total legislative salary amounts to $53,180 – just slightly over the average public school educator makes in a year, without teaching during the summer session.

If the language of Nelson’s amendment was applied to a base teacher pay, the only way a state legislator could ever get a pay raise is to boost teacher pay proportionately. Such an amendment to Mandeville Rep.’s proposal could easily be drafted in the House Appropriations Committee, where HB 149 will be next to be considered this coming week (as the measure would impact the state budget). Public comment will be solicited, and the bill could easily be amended in this second committee before ever appearing on the House floor.

If a legislative pay raise is inevitable this year (and the overall votes appear in place to assure its passage), and a teacher pay raise is not, Appropriations Committee Democrats and sympathetic Republicans should amend Nelson’s amendment to make sure that future legislators have a fiscal incentive to give teachers a pay raise. By setting 75 percent of teacher salaries as the base pay of Senators and Representatives, HB 149 can insure that the only way that future legislators can get a pay hike is if our public educators do!

This article originally published in the May 8, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.