Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Monday, June 10 that more than a billion dollars of this year’s budget have been earmarked for teacher pay.
But teachers unions aren’t cheering.
DeSantis said about $1.25 billion dollars of the new budget will go directly toward schools to give teachers salary raises in the new school year.
The governor said the new budget that will take effect after July 1 of this year, is about 90% approved.
“This is an increase of close to a quarter of a billion dollars in funding over the previous year's teacher categorical,” said DeSantis.
DeSantis said on average the minimum teacher salary pay is more than $48,000 dollars a year in the state.
But Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar said that’s simply not enough.
“We've called on the governor and the legislature to increase spending by two-and-a-half billion dollars a year for the next seven years to move us from the basement in funding to top 10th in the nation,” Spar said.
Spar said the National Education Association ranks Florida 50th in the country for teacher pay.
DeSantis called the statistic an exaggeration, and that districts are welcome to dip into the state funding they receive per pupil to fund teacher salaries as well.
But Spar said that per-pupil funding is also already low in Florida, after the passage of HB-1, which made school vouchers accessible to all K-12 students to attend private schools in the state.
“The per-student funding ranks 43rd in the nation, here in Florida and so it's not as strong as it needs to be, which is why we're calling for an overall increase,” Spar said. “If teacher pay isn’t fixed, the state won’t be able to solve a statewide teacher shortage."
His union estimated halfway through last year, Florida still needed 4,000 teachers.
Watch the full press conference below:
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