BATON ROUGE - The East Baton Rouge School Board is considering giving teachers stipends after not including pay raises in this year's budget.

"We were not able to do it in the budget cycle in terms of giving them the significant raise I believe they deserve," Superintendent Lamont Cole said.

The stipend matches payouts approved during the legislative session. If approved, teachers would receive $2,000 from both the district and the state. These stipends are currently scheduled to be distributed at the end of the year.

Some have raised concerns about the late payments, asking the district to send the stipends earlier than November and December. This led the board to select a survey to better understand what staff members want.

"The results of the survey are going to dictate when we release those stipends. Once we take a vote on it at our regular board meetings this month, then we are going to be ready and prepared to release the funding, and then we are going to base on what our teachers and staff say on the survey," Cole said.

School board member Carla Powell Lewis says the goal is to eventually secure raises for the district.

"I'm always in for giving teachers what they deserve because I've been there and I understand, and I'm determined to make sure that we do that during my lifetime," she said.

Some educators worry that a decline in enrollment could mean less funding for future pay increases, but Superintendent Lamont Cole disagrees.

"The decline is not going to have an impact on the raises because we are going to look at comprehensively how we are using the funding, generally speaking," he said.

The school district plans to release the survey to teachers on Monday regarding the stipend.