Local lawmakers supportive of higher salaries for new teachers

Check off as "accomplished" one of Gov. Mike Parson's key legislative priorities — outlined in his 2022 State of the State address — raising the minimum salary for Missouri teachers to $38,000 annually.

Rick Francis

On May 6, House lawmakers voted 138-10 to approve the coming year's appropriation for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), into which the new starting salary was embedded.

Senators voted the same day, approving the measure 29-4.

All local lawmakers voted in the affirmative.

Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder of Scott City and House legislators Jamie Burger of Benton, Barry Hovis of Whitewater and Rick Francis of Perryville all cast "yes" votes.

An opponent of House Bill 3002, GOP Rep. Chuck Basye of Rocheport, Missouri — current chairman of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee — said the higher minimum will place an undue burden on outstate districts.

"In the rural areas, they're very, very worried," Basye told news media in the state capital. "(School administrators) think it's going to be a terrible budget problem for them in the years to come. Now that it's something we passed, we're going to have to live with it."

Locally

Thompson Rehder and Francis, in remarks to the Southeast Missourian, were sympathetic to Basye's position.

"I'm always concerned about overloading rural schools, (and) balancing that with Missouri having one of the lowest teacher pay scales is just hard no matter how you do it," said Thompson Rehder, in her first Senate term following a maximum eight-year tenure in the House.

"The approved (DESE) budget requires the local district to pay 30% of the extra salary to get the base to $38,000. The state pays the other 70%. Some of the discussion around the increase in the transportation line item, which has an additional $214 million, was so rural districts that are having to help fund their transportation can hopefully be made whole," she added.

"I'm all for teacher raises," Francis said.

"The only concern is that our authorization is for one year only. Maybe we come back next year with a fix to the foundation formula to make the $38,000 minimum starting salary permanent. But we'll have to see what we can get done in Jefferson City," said the Perry County lawmaker first elected to General Assembly's lower chamber in 2016.

Echoing Rehder, he pointed to the transportation allotment OK'd by the legislature.

"Transportation funding was increased, which will help local school districts at their budget time," Francis said.

Governor

In Parson's State of the State address Jan. 19, he said the state ranked 50th in the nation in beginning pay for teachers, adding that half of the state's new teachers leave the profession by their fifth year in the classroom.

The old state minimum salary for teachers was $25,000 a year.

The overall $48 billion budget also contains extra funding for Medicaid and for Missouri's public colleges and universities.