Reporting by Meghan Bobrowsky and Ben Eisen, The Wall Street Journal, "The Teachers Getting $50,000 Bonuses Thanks to a Massive Meta Data Center." (Subscription required.)

Teachers in Richland Parish, Louisiana, are taking home bonuses of up to $50,935 this year. Last year the top bonus was $10,200. What changed is Meta's Hyperion data center, the new power plants Entergy Louisiana is building to run it, and the thousands of workers who came to build both.

For some of those teachers, the bonus is bigger than their salary. District pay runs from $29,504 to $52,335, the Journal reported.

"Anybody that complains about teachers getting a $50,000 check, they just instantly lose all credibility with me." Scott Franklin, Richland Parish Chamber of Commerce, to The Wall Street Journal

This is the untold story of the American energy boom. The coverage tends to stop at megawatts and dollar figures. In Richland Parish it shows up in a second grade teacher's paycheck.

How a 1968 Tax Became a $50,000 Check

A parish ordinance passed in 1968 lets the Richland Parish School Board collect a 1% sales tax to fund teacher bonuses. For decades it produced modest checks. Then construction started on Hyperion.

The parish brought in $42.9 million in sales and use tax in the first nine months of its fiscal year, more than double the prior year's total, according to the Northwest Louisiana Finance Authority. Meta separately made a $22.4 million tax payment to the parish in May, and more than half of it goes to the school district.

Support staff are sharing in it too. Their bonuses rose to as much as $17,472, up from $3,323 last year. The checks go out twice a year, in June and December.

"We anticipate elevated bonuses for the duration of the Hyperion construction project," Superintendent Sheldon Jones told Justin O'Connor of The Advocate. Second grade teacher Thomasina Minor put it more simply in an interview Meta published in July: "The bonus was jaw-dropping."

The Crews Behind the Checks

When Meta picked Richland Parish in December 2024, Louisiana's economic development agency said the $10 billion project would create 500 direct jobs, support 1,000 more indirectly, and employ 5,000 workers during construction. Meta has since expanded the campus to 5 gigawatts and puts its total investment in the region at more than $50 billion, with more than $1.6 billion in contracts awarded to local businesses, per the company's July 2026 update.

Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis estimates the project has brought roughly 8,000 new workers to the area. "We've been in a batting slump for probably three decades," Ellis told the Journal. "Like most Southern towns, we've really exported talent, exported business."

Those workers buy lunch, fill their trucks and rent rooms nearby. That spending is what fills the bonus fund. Local businesses are hiring to keep up. Mayo Tours grew from 40 coaches to 102, and its drivers now earn more than $80,000 a year, according to Meta. In Monroe, city schools said teacher bonuses this year will run 38% higher than last year.

Entergy Louisiana Is Building the Power

A campus this size needs power plants of its own, and that is a jobs story in its own right. Entergy Louisiana broke ground in December 2025 on two combined cycle generation facilities in Richland Parish, about 1,500 megawatts, with completion targeted for late 2028, according to Louisiana Economic Development. The full plan to serve the campus adds new natural gas units, grid scale batteries and more output from existing nuclear plants, per Meta.

"These facilities represent the next step in modernizing our generation fleet," Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May said at the groundbreaking. Plants like these are built by electricians, pipefitters and welders, and run for decades by operators and technicians.

What Lasts

Construction sales tax is the first wave. Property tax is the one that stays. Once the facility is complete, Meta will pay property taxes on it and must keep at least 500 people employed at the site, according to the finance authority.

"Sales tax at that level may be somewhat temporary," Franklin told the Journal, but property taxes "will live forever."

Meta has also given $5 million to the Louisiana Delta Community College Foundation, which funds scholarships for local graduates.

Richland Parish has about 20,000 residents, and its population had been falling before Meta arrived. This year its teachers took home checks five times the size of last year's. That is what an energy boom looks like on the ground.

More Coverage

Sources: Meghan Bobrowsky and Ben Eisen, The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2026 | Justin O'Connor, The Advocate, June 13, 2026 | Meta Newsroom, July 13, 2026 | Louisiana Economic Development, December 1, 2025

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