MO Legislature's Budget Negotiators Settle on $38,000 Teacher Pay Minimum

FILE – Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz delivers opening remarks during the start of the annual legislative session on Wednesday, Jan, 5, 2022, in Jefferson City, Mo. The Missouri Senate remained divided over a congressional redistricting plan Tuesday, Feb. 8 as a filibuster from conservatives pushing for an aggressively Republican map carried on through a second day and Democrats raised concerns that they were being treated unfairly. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

(MISSOURINET) – The Missouri Legislature is scrambling to pass the next state budget by Friday’s deadline.

During today’s House and Senate negotiations, committee members went back and forth about what level to raise Missouri’s minimum K-12 teacher pay to.

State Representative Rusty Black, a Republican from northwest Missouri’s Chillicothe, says the education community in his district prefers a 34-thousand-dollar minimum.

State Senator Karla Eslinger, a Republican from southern Missouri’s Wasola, says she has experience with school budgets and prefers 38-thousand-dollars annually.

Members ultimately landed on designating nearly 22-million-dollars to boost the pay from 25-thousand-dollars to 38-thousand through a state and local match program.

Another compromise fully funds the state’s share of K-12 school transportation for the first time since the 1990-91 school year.

The House could pass the budget tomorrow and then the plan would move to the Senate.