BATON ROUGE - The small teacher pay raise envisioned for next fall could wind up being nothing for instructors in some parishes and as much as much as $1,600 per year in at least one, the Senate Finance Committee was told Saturday.

Many teachers could get less than $200, some as little as $18. In Catahoula, teachers could get $4 raises - per year.

The administration had estimated that teachers would get a $339 pay raise from the $22 million-plus available in the new fiscal year, said Fred Skelton, director of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers.

However, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has decided to spread the relatively small amount through a formula that depends, in part, on a district's local taxing ability and on local pay that supplements state teacher pay, Skelton said.

Walter Lee, Northwest Louisiana's representative on the state education board, said that decision actually has not been made. But he isn't surprised the issue came up Saturday.

"I really don't know what BESE will do," Lee said. "The board itself hasn't discussed it yet. There are merits for both ways and downsides both ways. The reason to give raises (across the board) is so everybody gets the same amount. Teachers understand it. The public understands it better, too. That's the merit. The downside is that it goes absolutely counter to equity. There's no real good answer."

The trouble, says Skelton, is that the formula BESE would use to divide the pay isn't equitable either.

Teachers in Caddo Parish, for example, where taxing rates - and teacher salaries - are significantly higher than across the river in Bossier Parish will get only $152 a year. That's compared to a Bossier Parish teacher, who would get $964 a year.

Teachers in Baton Rouge will get nothing, while teachers in adjoining Livingston will get a $1,600 pay raise.

"In East Baton Rouge Parish, a teacher can drive a few minutes into Livingston and make substantially more," Skelton said.

Other parishes getting no money for a teacher raise would be Bienville, Cameron, St. James, St. Mary and Tensas.

"Look at Tensas, one of the poorest parishes in the state," Skelton said. "They get nothing?"

Some of the parishes that pay a lot of taxes would get little or nothing, including Jefferson, where teachers would get $18, Skelton said.

The funding formula used by BESE, known as the MFP, is unfair, does not work and must be changed, he said.

"The reason I haven't discussed this is that you haven't considered the MFP yet," said Skelton, who asked the Finance Committee to amend the budget bill and require across-the-board raises where every teacher will get the same thing.

"I suspect that amendment will be put on," said Sen. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro.

BESE President Paul Pastorek warned legislators last year when an across-the-board raise was approved that the education board never would approve such a raise again.

Pastorek said the salaries vary too much from parish to parish and the pay only can be stabilized through an equalization formula.

While the Legislature approves the money for education, lawmakers have little say in how it is used. That's left up to the state education board. Lawmakers only have two choices when presented the budget - approval or disapproval of the entire thing. They are not allowed to make changes.

The Legislature and BESE likely will be involved in another showdown over the raise issue with less than two weeks to go in the session.