Tangipahoa Parish school board adds finance-committee item, approves minutes; committee recommends stipend, bus-driver pay changes

TANGIPAHOA PARISH, Feb. 3, 2026 — The Tangipahoa Parish School Board unanimously approved previous meeting minutes and voted to add a finance-committee item to the Feb. 3 agenda that carries recommendations on staff stipends and bus-driver compensation.

Board members moved and seconded waiving the rules to add the finance-committee minutes for consideration. After the item was added, finance staff described the committee’s primary recommendation as an increase to extracurricular activity travel stipends and an adjustment to bus-driver hourly pay. "The main thing in there was to approve the stipend increase for the extracurricular activity travel," a finance presenter said during the meeting. The presenter also described an hourly rate change for bus drivers “for $15 to $25" and referenced a change described in the transcript as "the minimum from 30 to 50," language that was not further clarified in the public remarks.

Board members discussed the practice of adopting committee recommendations during board meetings and then voted to adopt the finance committee’s recommendations with no recorded opposition. The board did not provide detailed salary schedules or updated pay tables during the meeting; staff said the pay changes would start in August and be effective for the current school year because they had not been included in the existing salary schedule.

The board’s action was largely procedural: the vote added the committee’s recommendations to the agenda and adopted them as presented. No specific dollar-by-dollar salary schedule was approved on the public record during the meeting; the staff presentation contained the summary figures quoted above.

The meeting also included routine approvals of the capital outlay and finance-committee minutes. A separate board action later in the evening referred a proposed "Handle With Care" stipend to the policy committee for further review.