ST. LANDRY PARISH — St. Landry Parish School District board members approved a $1,000 pay raise for all district employees Thursday night, passing the motion in a 5 to 3 vote.
Many of these employees, including custodians, cafeteria staff, paraprofessionals, and bus drivers, earn between $16,000 and $25,000 a year, according to the district's pay scale, making them some of the lowest paid workers in the system.
The raise was recommended by the district's finance committee and will be funded through the Employee Compensation and Benefit Fund, which is supported by a parish-wide 1% sales tax.
The district says this is also the same fund that pays employees an extra stipend at the end of the year.
Superintendent Milton Batiste says that with the addition of the raise the district still has plans to give that extra stipend at the end of the year.
While the raise was approved, some board members voted against it, saying they would have preferred a pay structure that gave more to lower wage workers.
"I think this is a great thing because it shows that the board is invested in all of our employees, so I think it's great to just give a $1,000 raise across the board for our employees," said Batiste.
"Absolutely not that I'm against raises. I just thought we should try to give the people on the lower end of the pay scale more because giving raises just to say you gave raises or for the sake of giving raises is one thing, but if you can actually help people improve their buying power, their day to day living, I think that makes a difference," said school board member Randy Wagely.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
