Schools in West Virginia continue to lose teachers to higher-paying jobs in neighboring states and face shortages of service personnel.
A pair of bills that were advanced by the House Education Committee on Wednesday would significantly raise pay for both groups. However, smaller raises have been proposed by the governor that are more in line with what lawmakers have typically approved in recent years.
“We’ll probably do a teacher pay raise this year, we just don’t know how much,” House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, said.
Del. Joe Ellington, a Republican from Mercer County who chairs the House Education Committee, sponsored the $5,000 teacher pay raise bill. It would set new salaries of about $42,000 for entry-level teachers, $52,000 for teachers with master’s degrees and ten years of experience and $60,000 for teachers with doctorates and 20 years of experience.
The school personnel pay raise bill, sponsored by Del. Chris Toney, R-Raleigh, would provide nearly $700 more each month for service personnel, such as aides, bus drivers, custodians and accountants.
Toney, a bus driver, said schools are losing bus drivers to truck driver positions.
“If you’ve got your CDL, you can go somewhere else and make more money,” he said.
Last year, similar proposals made it through the House Education Committee but didn’t make it any further. A smaller $2,300 pay increase for teachers was approved instead.
Ellington acknowledged the governor’s smaller proposed raise, but said he wanted to “send a message” to teachers by moving forward a bill with a higher pay raise.
“We also want to give them a comfortable lifestyle,” he said.
But lawmakers are split on whether to raise teacher pay at all. Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has criticized the governor’s budget, a $400 million increase over last year, for being a fiscally irresponsible “wish list” and said he doesn’t even support 5% pay raises.
Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, a member of the same committee, said they recognized the need for more teachers.
“A big part of what we’re trying to do is really forecast revenues into the future and expenses into the future,” Oliverio said. “As we do that, we’ll be able to better determine what we can and can’t do and the teacher pay raise is obviously part of the discussion.”
Over the last few years, lawmakers have passed four raises for state employees, including $2,300 for teachers last year. But the state remains 50th in the nation for average teacher salary.
Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, said teacher vacancies increased from about 1,500 last year to 1,700 this year.
His group supports the bill that passed the House Education Committee today.
A recent survey of 700 randomly selected educators, provided by the West Virginia Education Association, found that nearly half were likely to leave the field earlier than planned, and along with salaries and other educators leaving, lack of respect and stress and burnout were top concerns.