PHOENIX — Come this November, Arizonans may be voting on raising teacher pay. It’s all through renewing Prop 123.
Proposition 123 was approved by voters nearly 10 years ago. It allowed an increase in a portion of money from the state land trust to go toward education. The proposition is expected to expire in 2025 unless it gets approved by voters again through a resolution from state lawmakers.
Governor Katie Hobbs and Democratic lawmakers outlined their plans earlier this week wanting to raise pay for every teacher and school support staff.
According to Hobbs’s proposed plan, put forth by Democratic Senator Christine Marsh earlier this week, the plan would extend Prop 123 for another 10 years, increasing the State Land Trust withdrawal from the current 6.8% to 8.9% with the following split:
- 2.5% of the distribution will continue general school funding
- 4.4% of the distribution will raise educator compensation
- 1.5% of the distribution will increase support staff compensation
- .5% of the distribution will invest in school capital for safety and security
However, Republican lawmakers like Rep. Matt Gress say that plan is unsustainable. State Treasurer Kimberly Yee also said continuing at 6.9% or increasing to 8.9% is too much.
Gress put forth a concurrent resolution with Rep. Austin Smith on Wednesday with their own plan to raise teacher pay by using and extending Prop 123.
Gress proposed to use the same 6.9% amount it’s currently at but direct all that money to teacher pay. He says because the state has been operating at this percentage for the last 10 years, he believes their plan is the “sweet spot,” adding that there are safeguards in place to make sure the corpus of the trust “remains sound.”
“This would apply to classroom teachers. They would need to spend 75% of their time in the classroom. For special education teachers, they would need to spend 50% of their time in the classroom,” Gress continued. “I've talked to [a] number of school leaders and they say that's definitely achievable and is happening already.”
While Hobbs’ plan would also direct funds toward support staff as well, Gress said their plan to direct 100% of funds to teacher pay would also help support staff in another way.
“That goes back to the annual formula payments that we make right now. Every increase in education spending that's generally applied to school budgets. Most of that is going to teachers as we know it because they're the largest personnel group in a school's operating budget,” Gress said. “This way we are earmarking the Land Trust dollars for teachers, leaving all of the formula funding to be used for other school personnel for raises or hiring additional staff like social workers or school counselors or school safety officers.”
To get Prop 123 back on the ballot this November, both the House and the Senate, both of which have Republican majorities, need to pass a resolution. The Governor’s support is not needed for that.
If no resolution comes forward for the voters, it’s possible the state land trust distribution could go back from 6.9% to the original 2.5% before voters approved the increase.
“This is the biggest chance right now in the foreseeable future, given our budget challenge, to make a major move in the education space,” Gress said.
Gress hopes the resolutions will go through the floor in the next month or two.
