Two months before this year’s state law-making session began in January in the Capitol in Frankfort, Gov. Andy Beshear said he would “fight like heck” to get legislators in 2022 to raise Kentucky teachers’ pay.
He had pushed for $2,000 salary increases for teachers when he was on the campaign trail in 2019 but the Republican-led legislature balked in 2020 at the proposal.
For the 2022 Kentucky General Assembly, the Democratic governor sought a 5% across-the-board raise for teachers.
The legislature again said no to teachers while it raised salaries 8 percent for most state workers and legislators.
For teachers, the General Assembly decided to increase its money to school districts from $4,000 a student to $4,100 a student in the first year of the two-year budget and $4,200 in the second year and let each school district decide whether to boost teachers’ pay.
So, how did teachers fare under the legislature’s plan and not Beshear’s?
What a survey showed
The Kentucky School Boards Association did its “first-of-its-kind” survey in mid-July of teacher raises in the state’s 171 school districts. It was for this school year with help from the Kentucky Association of School Business Officials, said Eric Kennedy, director of advocacy for the KSBA.
The survey, he said, was done by email and was sent to superintendents and school finance officers. It can be found here.
One key take-away from the survey, said Kennedy, is how diverse are the districts’ approaches in employee raises.
It asked, “Did your school board approve an across-the-board employee raise for the 2022-23 school year (that was separate and in addition to step increases; and no matter if it was called a cost of living/COLA increase; raise; etc.)?” Step increases are built into a district’s budget to reflect education level and experience.
The survey showed 95% of the 171 school districts answered, “Yes.”
About 37% gave all employees the same percent raise as the preceding year, while about 58% adopted more complex compensation packages such as additional raises for targeted employees, alternating increases for certified (staff that must have a certificate to work like teachers, counselors, librarians and principals) and classified (staff that does not need certification like cooks, janitors and bus drivers) or increases determined by years of service.
But the survey showed nine school districts said no to pay raises this year — Breathitt County, Clinton County, Dawson Springs Independent, Edmonson County, Eminence Independent, Fulton County, Glasgow Independent, Jackson Independent and Lee County.
Four of them — Dawson Springs Independent, Edmonson County, Fulton County and Lee County — did not provide a pay raise for the prior year.
The survey showed only 24 of the state’s 171 school districts provided at least 5% pay raises for this school year — what Beshear wanted.
They included in Northern Kentucky Bracken County (5 percent), Covington Independent (5%), Erlanger-Elsmere Independent (5%), Gallatin County (6%), Kenton County (5%) and Pendleton County (an average raise of 7% for all employees).
The survey showed Boone County with a 4% raise and Campbell with 1 percent.
Fulton Independent gave at least an 8% pay raise this year to its teachers, and Laurel County gave 5% to certified staff and 9% to classified.
Somerset Independent gave a 2% pay raise this year but noted that it has provided a total of 10% increase over the last eight years. Most have been 1% increases with a few years of 2% gain.
Support for the legislative decision
While some advocates had hoped for mandated across-the board raises for all teachers, the Kentucky School Boards Association argues that the funding increases made locally approved raises more feasible for many districts.
Nick Clark, president of the Kentucky Association of School Business Officials and internal auditor for Fayette County Public Schools, said in the September edition of KSBA’s Advocate, the survey showed that school districts are giving pay raises even throughout the pandemic.
“They may not be giving as much as they would have liked but they were giving a pay raise,” Clark said.
He said if the board chooses not to give a pay raise, there is a step increase. “So if a teacher goes from year 15 to year 16, there is a little of a cost of living increase there.
Some districts do it on a yearly basis, some in five-year chunks. A lot still try to do a 1% raise on top of it.”
For example, Kenton County, one of the top-paying school districts in the state for teachers, has a salary schedule this year that shows a 15-year school teacher with Rank 1 (60 semester hours of approved college graduate credit including a Master’s degree) receiving $66,533. It jumps about $1,000 to $67,583 for a teacher with 16 years of experience.
Clark said leaving the pay decision up to the school board is the right thing to do.
“I think every board knows what they can and can’t afford, and just because the legislators come in and say, ‘Hey, everybody, you’re going to give a 2% raise and here’s the funding for that 2% raise,’ that funding only applies to that fiscal year and that 2% pay raise compounds each year going forward.
“So it’s one thing to pay for it every year after that; that’s an area where finance officers are saying we can do the 1 percent but 2% is pushing us a little bit.”
School boards don’t give raises at the same level across the board, said Clark, because they have to see where their biggest areas of concern are.
Some districts may not be able to do as much for teachers because they are struggling to find custodial or transportation staff, he said.
“What works for one school district may not work for another school district.
Support for mandated across-the board raises
The Kentucky Education Association, made up of 44,000-plus certified educators and classified education support professionals across the state, and KY 120 United, an advocacy group for public education that is partnering with the American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers’ union, favor mandated across-the-board raises for school employees.
KEA President Eddie Campbell and Nema Brewer, a Kentucky AFT organizer, said leaving the salaries up to the school boards leads to inequity.
“Some school districts in the KSBA survey did not provide any raises. A few got up to 5 percent raises but there is no equity across the state,” said Campbell, a Knox County schools choir director.
The KEA says Kentucky ranks 36th in the nation in average teacher salary. The average teacher salary in Kentucky is $54,139, while the national average is $66,397.
The average teacher salary in bordering states is $53,072 (41st) for Indiana, $63,082 (18th) for Ohio, $70,705(13th) for Illinois, $52,871 (42nd) for Tennessee, $50,261 (49th) for West Virginia, $58,506 (25th) for Virginia and $51,557 (47th) for Missouri.
Campbell said KEA also is concerned about the state’s ranking of 44th in the nation for average starting pay for teachers — $37,373 in Kentucky compared to the national starting average of $41,770.
“We have been advocating for at least $40,000,” he said. “I think that’s a factor in our teacher shortage.”
An across-the-board mandated raise certainly would help in attracting new teachers, Campbell said during a recent interview in his Frankfort office.
The KEA president said he appreciates Gov. Beshear’s efforts to raise the salaries of all school employees.
“We will be continuing that effort in the legislature’s 2024 budget session,” Campbell said.
Asked why he thinks the legislature did not go with across-the-board raises for school employees, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t serve in the legislature.”
Brewer, a retired community relations specialist in the Fayette County Public Schools system, said all teachers in Kentucky should have gotten a 5% pay raise this year and she thinks she knows why the legislature did not do that.
“It was another stick in the eye this year from the legislature to teachers because public school employees showed up and fought the legislature over pensions in 2018 and 2019,” she said.
Brewer said teachers are state employees and should have gotten a mandated state pay raise like all state employees.
“We do not begrudge our fellow state workers getting a pay raise because they have been underpaid for years. I can’t say the same for our part-time state legislators who got pay raises and boosts for their pensions,” she said.
“Their rolling the state dollars into basic school funding did not help all teachers, as the KSBA survey shows,” she said.
Brewer said her group will continue to advocate for mandated pay raises for school employees and try to unionize every school district to obtain collective bargaining.
“It’s the right thing to do,” she said.
Jack Brammer is a part-time state reporter covering the Northern Kentucky Tribune state legislative caucus and state politics. Prior to joining the NKyTribune, he was the Frankfort Bureau Chief for the Lexington Herald-Leader, a role he retired from in December 2021 after covering nine Kentucky governors and 58 sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly.
