BATON ROUGE, La. — A constitutional amendment is the most likely way the Legislature will find the money to grant teachers a raise, Rep. Bryant Hammett said Thursday.

Some lawmakers are proposing that the Legislature pass an amendment that, if passed by a majority of those voting in the fall, would replace much of the state’s sales tax with an income tax.

That would generate $220 million, enough to give the average Louisiana teacher a raise of about $3,000 a year and raise the average citizen’s tax bill by $150 to $200 a year, said Hammett, D-Ferriday. &uot;There are several other proposals, such as doubling the tax on riverboats (casinos), but that doesn’t have a good chance of getting through the process,&uot; he said.

Hammett’s comments came the day after 5,000-plus teachers and school support employees, including 200 from Concordia Parish, picketed on the State Capitol steps to gain pay raises.

The average salary for Louisiana teachers is $32,510 — a figure some at Wednesday’s rally disputed as too high — while the southern average is $35,808. Sales taxes do not produce much more revenue when the economy is good than when the economy is doing poorly — and much of Louisiana’s revenue is based on sales taxes. But income taxes grow as the economy grows.

Hammett — chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which deals with taxation measures — believes getting more of the state’s revenue from income taxes might be a way to help guard against budget shortfalls such as the $300 million one lawmakers face this year.

But he and Sen. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, acknowledge there is much more work to be done to get the two-thirds vote in the Legislature that is needed to pass the amendment and get it on the fall ballot. &uot;I&160;suspect there is some resistance in the Senate leadership to (more) income tax,&uot; Ellington said. &uot;But there’s some merit in giving it to the people to decide, and that might make it easier.&uot;