Governor John Bel Edwards has signed the 30-billion dollar budget that lawmakers approved in the recently completed legislative session. Edwards says the spending plan that goes into effect July 1st contains the first teacher pay raise in a decade.
“It’s not just teachers, it’s also certificated personnel and all support workers are in this particular instrument, because we know it’s everyone on campus that contributes to the education of our children,” said Edwards.
Teachers will receive a one-thousand dollar pay raise, school support workers get a five-hundred dollar boost in pay. The budget also contains an additional 39-million dollars in block grant funding for public schools and the budget increases funding so that additional children can attend pre-K education classes.
“And what that means at the end of the day there’s about 1,458 who are going to removed from the waiting list and they are going to get a slot,” said Edwards.
Edwards says if re-elected, he’ll push Louisiana teacher salaries to the Southern Regional Average.
“We didn’t quite get there, but his is a big down payment in the process and we are going to make sure that happens,” said Edwards.
