ARKANSAS, USA — Teacher pay in Arkansas is a hot topic right now with a special session starting in less than three weeks and without teacher pay raises being on the agenda. All democratic lawmakers sent an open letter Monday (July 18) to Arkansas teachers and support staff letting everyone know that they stand behind a pay raise for teachers.
“We are seeing states nearby like Texas try to recruit our teachers away with much higher salaries. And we know just looking back at 2021, we lost 24% of our teachers in the state and it was about 20% the year before. So, we have a crisis here and we just believe it needs to be addressed sooner than later,” said Greg Leding.
A special session will start on August 8th and these legislators and groups are calling for teacher raises to be on the agenda. Governor Asa Hutchinson previously proposed using part of the surplus to raise the minimum teacher salary, but that proposal failed to gain support and the Governor decided to not add the item to the agenda. Leding says this $1.6 million surplus is an incredible opportunity to invest in the state.
“There is the argument that using it to increase pay for teachers is an ongoing expense and I understand that but the tax cuts a lot of my Republicans want to pass is also an ongoing expense and if we are going to treat the surplus that way, I would much rather invest it in public education than giving a tax break to the wealthiest Arkansans,” he said.
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh of Van Buren is on the house education committee. He tells 5News that while he supports increasing teachers’ pay, he isn’t sure using surplus money is the way to do it. Our Little Rock station spoke to the chair of that committee, Rep. Bruce Cozart last week who said teacher pay is on their radar, just not this special session.
"Not that we don't want to give teachers a raise, don't get me wrong it's not that. It's just we need to do it in the right way. Even if we raise the minimum salary of teachers from the bottom up, you know, they all come up and that costs money every year,” said Rep. Bruce Cozart.
President of the Arkansas Education Association, Carol Fleming says now is the time to invest in public schools and they are calling on the governor to add this to the special session. She says Arkansas is second to last in the country in certified teacher pay.
“It is time that we pay the educators a professional salary that they deserve in order to recruit and retain highly qualified individuals, we have to pay them their value. If we pay a starting salary of $46,000, we become competitive to our surrounding states,” she said.
On Tuesday, July 19, republican lawmakers noted there’s around $500 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding that districts could use as bonuses for teachers. If you support teacher raises you are encouraged to reach out to your lawmakers and the governor and let them know you think this needs to be addressed in August.
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