Levy County School Board member Brad Etheridge said the board needs to weigh in on teacher raises before a final decision is made by the Florida Legislature.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Starting pay for first-year teachers in Levy County is $36,200 annually, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and lawmakers in the Florida Senate and House are discussing legislation that could raise the state’s minimum teacher pay level to $47,500.
Ranking senators and house members have begun wrangling over what they believe the final bill should say, how much money should be set aside for raises and how the funds should be divided among teachers.
State legislators are in the final 17 days of the session. Levy County School Board member Brad Etheridge on Tuesday said the board needs to dive into the issue in Tallahassee to offer their point of view in the next few days.
Etheridge said the goal of the Legislature and governor is to raise a starting teacher’s salary to $47,500 but he said nothing is written in stone at this point and he doesn’t want teachers to bank on something that isn’t approved.
“When we read that our base salary is going to $47,500, I just want to make sure we don’t have teachers borrowing money for cars and loans and other things thinking the full $47,500 is coming, because it may not be. We may see a change in the Legislature between now and then. I just don’t want us banking on something that may not be coming. So I’m done. I don’t know if that’s negative, but an FYI.”
He said giving the teachers a raise is something he supports as long as the salary increase is fully funded at the state level, but he said at this point lawmakers aren’t planning to fully fund their raises proposal.
“There’ no doubt we want to pay as much as we can to our teachers but it’s got to be fully funded at a state-mandated level. If they’re mandating it, it has to be funded,” Etheridge said.
A reporter asked if the state was planning to ship all the money needed for the raises to local school districts.
“That’s what we’re bringing up. They’re not. If they are tying the raises to FTE, which is student the population and it’s not tied directly to the classroom teacher or personnel, every county may have a different ratio of students to teacher population, so it doesn’t calculate the same between counties.
“This is proposed, not necessarily the way it is in stone. There’s still time to reach out. You know and I know as we get to the end of the Legislature the horse-trading goes on; there’s less public input, so we need to be on the ball.”
DeSantis asked the Legislature to set aside $600 million to increase the state’s minimum teacher salary to $47,500. He said it would impact more than 100,000 teachers. He has also called for $300 million to go into teacher bonuses.
The Senate budget proposal calls for $500 million for teacher raises, or $100 million less than what DeSantis recommended, and said the money should be distributed among school districts as a percentage of total funds.
House PreK-12 Appropriations Chairman Chris Latvala has released a plan that calls for $650 million for “salary enhancement supplements”, or $150 million more than what the Senate proposed. He said $500 million would go toward the goal of increasing the state’s minimum teacher salary to $47,000.
State education officials say there is a teacher shortage throughout Florida. One of the concerns expressed by lawmakers about the proposed raises is that Miami-Dade and Monroe wouldn’t benefit because they already meet the minimum teacher salaries level in the proposed bill. There is also concern that veteran teachers are being left out of the pay raise.
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School Board of Levy County Regular Meeting February 25, 2020; Posted February 25, 2020
