Will the SC House adopt a teacher pay increase when legislators return next week?
When legislators return this week to the State House, among the items that are on the line is whether teachers will receive their annual pay bumps they get in part for how many years they’ve been on the job.
The annual pay bumps would cost an additional $40 million, and state senators allocated enough money for them in a budget they passed on Tuesday.
But the fate of the budget, including the teacher pay raises, is less clear in the House. And the idea of tabling a budget until next year has powerful backers in the governor and the chief state budget writer in the House.
Now that the budget has come to the House, representatives need to decide whether to adopt the spending plan, debate the budget on the floor, or send it to the Ways and Means Committee for additional study.
“There’s a couple of choices again: you know it could get referred to committee, or it could be debated on the floor, so you know I’m sure the speaker has to make some of those decisions,” said Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith, R-Sumter.
But teachers are urging a House vote on the Senate budget, which also includes money for prison security upgrades, school nurses and hazard pay for state employees who had to come into work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re certainly very concerned at the moment that the budget won’t be brought to floor for discussion and debate, nevertheless get passed,” said Patrick Kelly, the director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association. “Since this is the end of the current legislative session, our state deserves for both chambers in the General Assembly to at least debate and discuss a budget.”
Kelly said the $40 million in the Senate plan for step increases amounts to a 2% pay increase.
Before the pandemic, a larger pay raise had been proposed earlier in the year in order to increase the average salary of teachers in the state as part of an effort to improve education in the state.
House members are considering sticking with a continuing resolution adopted earlier this year to keep spending levels the same as last year. However, the resolution doesn’t include annual step increases for teachers or the hazard pay.
Gov. Henry McMaster called on legislators to hold off on passing a budget, preferring they stick with the continuing resolution because of the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
The Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office is estimating the state will have $86 million in new recurring revenue during the 2020-21 fiscal year, which began in July, which is more than enough to pay for teacher pay increases, but is still a drastic drop from what was originally projected earlier in the year.
Kelly argues if revenues don’t come in as projected, the state has money available to spend. The Senate set aside $500 million for a reserve fund to cover costs if revenues come in lower than anticipated.
Kelly adds the state also has more than $500 million coming from the federal government as part a settlemet to remove plutonium settlement at the Savannah River site, although he says he is not advocating that money go toward schools.
Smith said he wants to have at least two quarters of the year in the books to see how the economy is doing amid the pandemic, and said it’s not prudent to pass a budget.
Smith referred to the experience of the Great Recession when the state Legislature had come back to make large cuts because revenues took a dive from what had been projected.
“If we come back here in January, and revenue has not declined, and we have revenue, then I’m committed to doing a supplemental bill and taking care of the needs of teachers with step increases, with the state employees and a lot of these things are in the Senate (plan), and I think the House would be committed to doing that in early January,” Smith said.
Teachers, however, aren’t satisfied with a promise for a pay increase in January. An election is set to take place and every seat in the General Assembly is up for grabs.
“We’re not guaranteed to know who will comprise the General Assembly (after) November,” Kelly said. “Some of the people that are promising they would potentially visit a supplemental in January, while I’m sure they are offering that in good faith, not all of them are guaranteed to return to the General Assembly. So there’s that level of unknown.”
Smith insists the staying with the continuing resolution is safer financial option.
“The (continuing resolution) freezes the revenues from last year so the agencies know what their revenues are coming in. And then we have enough money set in reserves, where we’re even if we had the numbers we had in the Great Recession, that we would be able to cover them for at least a year if not more,” Smith said. “So this has given them a safety net that we will not be having to reduce budgets for at least one year.”
CARES Act spending
This week, the two chambers also must come to an agreement on how to spend the remaining federal COVID-19 relief money, which must be spent before the end of the year.
The Senate and House each have their own versions of how to spend the money, and conference committee members have been named to work out the differences.
The South Carolina House on Wednesday adopted its spending plan of the leftover federal CARES Act money that was not spent in the state’s first phase.
“I think it’s important we move these funds as quickly and judiciously as possible,” said state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland.
Under the House plan, $450 million would go toward shoring up the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, a fund that had to help more and more people this year as people were laid off or furlough amid the pandemic. Senators opted for $420 million.
To continue to pay for COVID-19 testing around the state, $73 million will go to the Department of Health and Environmental Control and $20 million to the Medical University of South Carolina. Senators approved the same amounts for testing.
Under the House plan, nonprofits would receive $25 million, and small and minority-owned businesses would receive $50 million. Senators proposed setting aside $20 million for a relief program for nonprofits, and $20 million more for a minority owned small business relief program.
The House plan also includes $130 million for local governments, colleges and universities and historically black colleges and universities. The Senate version sends $115 million to colleges and universities and local governments.
The House bill allows the Department of Education to spend money it has left over from its Academic Recovery Camps and LEAP Day instruction on personal protective equipment, textbooks and materials for its Virtual SC program, tutoring, and school nurses, among other things.
The Legislature originally allocated $210.7 million for the recovery camps and LEAP days, but $60 million to $75 million is expected to be leftover, said Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown.
