AUSTIN (Nexstar) — In his State of the State address on Sunday evening, Gov. Greg Abbott made teacher pay raises an emergency item for this session as he hopes to make Texas number one in education. His emergency item allows the state legislature the ability to pass a teacher pay raise in the first two months of the session.
“We must fund and train the best teachers,” Abbott said during his speech. “That starts with giving our teachers a pay raise this session. To increase teachers’ average salary to an all-time high.”
The governor did not mention how large of a pay raise he wanted to see or how it was going to be paid.
“Good soundbites, but not achieving what we need here,” State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said in a response to the governor’s speech on Sunday night. She said teacher pay raises will have bipartisan support, but there is debate on what it will exactly look like.
One possible way to increase a teacher’s salary is to increase the basic allotment for each student in Texas. According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the last time the basic allotment was increased in Texas was in 2019 when it shot up to $6,160 per student.
House Bill 3, the law that increased the basic allotment in 2019, 75% of the allotment must be used to increase the compensation paid to classroom teachers. Howard said the state could increase the basic allotment but it would be a large investment.
“If you increased the basic allotment and bring it up to where it has the same buying power that it had in 2019, the last time we increased it, that would be $20 billion over the next two year budget cycle,” Howard explained.
Howard said it is important to give teachers an on-going pay increase which is what the basic allotment would allow for.
State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, has set a number on what he would like to see when it comes to pay raises.
“We could take just half of this historic budget surplus and be able to give every Texas teacher a $15,000 dollar pay raise,” Talarico said. “That’s exactly what the governor should be calling for.” Talarico tried to give teachers a $15,000 raise last session in House Bill 1548, but it never made it out of the committee.
Senate Bill 1, the budgetary proposal from the Texas Senate, carves out $4.1 billion for “changes related to the compensation of public school educators.” It’s unclear at this time if there will be a one-time payment or an on-going fund.
Teacher Incentive Allotment program
The governor also mentioned he wants to expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program, which was created to reward outstanding teachers in school districts. The merit program is designed to help put teachers on the track to making a six-figure salary.
School districts must create a system that helps identify their highest-performing teachers based on student success before they can apply to the TEA to become eligible for the program. If approved, school districts can receive money from the state depending on how many high-performing teachers are at its district. The process can take about three years before becoming fully approved.
That money is used to pay teachers higher salaries. According to the TEA, 597 school districts, or almost half of the public school districts in the state, are either approved or in the process of applying for approval in the TIA program. There is no cap in how much money the state can give out in this program, according to the TEA website.
Abbott said he wants to expand the program to ensure every school district in the state is a part of it. You can see if your school district is a part of this program here. SB 1, the budget proposal in the Texas Senate, carved out $750 million for the TIA.
