Department of Education calls for teacher raises in 2021-22. Does SC have the money?
After a year of teachers missing out on salary increases because of the ongoing pandemic, the South Carolina Department of Education wants teachers to receive a pay bump.
As the pandemic created an economic slow down making budget planning difficult at best, the General Assembly decided to continue spending at pre-COVID-19 levels, rather than adopt teacher pay raises or fund salary increases, called step increases, pay bumps educators receive based on years of experience.
State officials have wanted to increase pay for teachers in the state in order to bring the state’s average salary into the top 25 in the country.
In the 2018-19 budget, the minimum pay for teachers was increased to $35,000 from $32,000 a year. Gov. Henry McMaster called for an increase to $38,000 a year during the 2019-20 budget process. However, a pay increase for teachers was not approved by the Legislature because of the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
The S.C. Department of Education wants teachers to receive a 2% salary increase for next school year, as well as reinstate annual step increases.
Within the budget request, nearly $52 million is being set aside to pay for 2% teacher raises, with an additional $50 million to pay for the step increases.
The 2% raise will amount to an $1,100 pay bump for the average teacher. If step increases are reinstated as well, the raise would total $2,200 for the average teacher, according to Department of Education spokesperson Ryan Brown.
The proposed increase also would bring to the base teacher salary to $35,700.
The Education Department wants a $50 increase in the base student cost — the amount of money the state says is needed to educate a single student — that schools can use for their operations such as salaries, technology needs, supplies and materials or other things needed to educate a child. That increase from $2,489 per student would be an additional $100 million in state expenditures.
In total, the Department of Education is asking for $427 million in new recurring and non-recurring dollars in its budget request, an amount it recognizes will probably not be fulfilled.
“The role the agency plays is to advocate on behalf of public education and what the needs are,” Brown said. “These requests are prioritized, ultimately that’s what we believe is needed so that’s what we’re asking for.”
Though teachers have allies in the State House, getting legislators to agree to pay raise for teachers may be a challenge.
Legislators expect to have about $1.2 billion in new revenue to allocate, but only $182 million is expected to be recurring dollars, which can be used for ongoing expenses such as salaries.
“Teacher pay and education is going to still be a priority of the House,” said Ways and Means Chairman Murrell Smith, a Sumter Republican. “It’s just a matter of what the revenues (are). ... (W)e have to take a cautious approach as we move forward and understand what the revenue is, and the one thing that we’ve learned through this fiscal year is that the revenue has been so unpredictable. We had wild swings — we’ve had a billion dollars of new revenue coming into the state, and (that) incrementally has gone down.”
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, the highest ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means committee, says teacher raises are probably more likely to happen than state employee raises.
“I don’t get any pleasure out of saying that we have gotten to a point here where we are pitting state employees against teachers, teachers against state employees. It shouldn’t be that way. Both are essential,” Cobb-Hunter said.
Nurses, instructional materials needed
Education officials say many needs are outstanding and some exacerbated by the pandemic.
The education department also wants to spend $5.5 million to make sure each school in the state has a nurse.
Around the state, 79 schools in the state do not have a nurse, and 32 schools only have a part-time nurse. COVID-19 has exposed a great need for nurses in schools, and having a nurse on staff is helpful to performing the rapid COVID-19 tests made available to school districts.
“The health, safety and welfare of students, teachers and staff is one of the highest priorities of the SCDE,” the department said in its budget request. “Not only will this funding help alleviate stressful workloads of many school and district nurses, it will allow schools to safely operate and have the key staff available if needed.”
SCDE also wants $100 million for new instructional materials for kindergarten through eighth-grade math, as well as updated Social Studies and science materials, among other subjects. However, $70 million of that money would be a one-time expense.
Brown said there are proposals in the agency’s budget request that are “long overdue that have been put aside that we have to advocate for regardless of how much money there is.”
The pandemic also forced students to into remote learning, and the state education department wants to increase its Virtual S.C. program. The program had already been growing before the pandemic.
“Prior to COVID we were not able to meet the demand that was needed. We needed to hire additional teachers. We have not been successful in getting that funding. We got some COVID funding for that purpose,” Brown said. “This is to meet the demand that existed, plus the demand that we know will exist during and after COVID as people have seen and better understand virtual education.”
The Department of Education recognizes its request will most likely be whittled down by legislators to what is ultimately feasible.
“We’re not going to get everything we ask for, we never get everything we ask for,” Brown said. “But that’s not our job. Our job is to ask for what is needed. It’s the General Assembly’s job to determine what they are going to fund.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
