EDUCATION

Ducey's '20 percent' promise persists, but the plan can't fund raises for all teachers

Richard Ruelas
The Republic | azcentral.com
Angela Murphy (center) joins fellow Arizona teachers during a rally at the Arizona state Capitol for higher pay and more education funding on April 27, 2018, in Phoenix.

As lawmakers debated and discussed the teacher pay raise plan proposed by Gov. Doug Ducey, one element seemed clear: The plan would not guarantee 20 percent raises to every single teacher.

However, once the plan was passed and sent to Ducey's desk, he revived that promise while signing it.

In a video posted to Twitter on Thursday, Ducey said the bill, among the other budget bills, would "codify the 20 percent teacher pay raise by 2020."

An ad that began airing Friday, paid for by the Republican Governors' Association as part of Ducey's re-election campaign, also says that "teachers are receiving a 20 percent raise."

But the plan as passed would not provide the funding for every single teacher to receive a 20 percent raise. Nor would it mandate that all the dollars provided go to teacher salaries.

RELATED: Arizona Legislature passes state budget, including teacher pay-raise plan

At one point during the debate surrounding the bill Wednesday, lawmakers went through the process by which teachers would get pay raises, pointing out several times that the Legislature would have no control over how the money is spent.

"We are out of the business of paying teachers directly," said Rep. David Livingston, R-Glendale, during the House Republican Caucus, "and the whole responsibility falls on school boards directly."

Ducey, since rolling out his plan at a news conference on April 12, has consistently promised that each and every teacher would receive an exact pay raise of 20 percent.

His plan promised a 9 percent raise next year, followed by 5 percent raises each of the next two years.

Additionally, the 1 percent increase that was given this year would be rolled into the funding formula.

Ducey said that meant that "by the beginning of the 2020 school year, every Arizona teacher will have received a cumulative raise of 20 percent."

RELATED: What else is in the budget besides teacher raises? Here are notable items

As recently as April 23, in an interview with Mike Broomhead, morning host on 550 AM, KFYI, Ducey said: "Make no mistake, when we pass this plan, every teacher in the state will have a 20 percent pay raise by 2020."

The bill, however, would deliver an average raise of 20 percent over three years to a teacher making the statewide average salary.

During a brief interview with The Republic on Friday, Ducey repeated the 20 percent line.

In an interview on Channel 12, KPNX-TV, on Friday, Ducey said spending decisions would be left to local districts, but still touted the 20 percent number.

"We wanted to work with them in the way where they did have some flexibility," he said of principals and superintendents. "They will have the 20 percent."

Behind the pay-raise numbers

Some districts that pay their teachers higher than the state average will receive less funding than needed to give 20 percent raises to all teachers, according to a presentation the Joint Legislative Budget Committee gave to lawmakers last week.

An Arizona Republic analysis, based on figures provided to the Arizona auditor general by school districts, shows that 59 districts would not receive enough funding to give all teachers a 20 percent pay raise.

Those include some of the largest districts in the Phoenix area: Mesa Unified, Chandler Unified and Phoenix Union.

Ducey, in a meeting with superintendents on April 30, seemed to acknowledge as much, said Paul Tighe, superintendent of Saddle Mountain Unified District in Tonopah.

RELATED: Some Arizona districts won't get enough for 20 percent raises

Tighe, president of the Arizona School Administrators Superintendents’ Division, said during an interview Friday that the governor seemed to understand that each district across the state had a complex and shifting set of needs and that figuring out the cost of across-the-board raises for every single teacher would be complex.

"He kind of backed off of that notion," Tighe said.

The governor's office said the pay raises were added to the per-pupil funding formula after consultation with educators. Adding it to that base formula ensures it continues each year and is adjusted for inflation, the office said.

The bills will require districts and charter schools to report how much they spent on teacher pay raises and show average salary increases, in both raw dollars and percentages, in a prominent place on their websites.

A potentially misleading figure

But that figure could also be misleading, said Raymond Aguilera, superintendent of the Gadsden Elementary School District in San Luis, in the southwest corner of Arizona.

Aguilera said the average number could be skewed if a high-salaried teacher retired and was replaced by an entry-level teacher with a lower salary.

Aguilera also said that some of the pay increase goes toward retirement benefits and other items that cut into gross pay. He said the take-home figure at the bottom of the check will not reflect the 20 percent boost after three years, even if it was granted.

RELATED: After a session rocked by #RedForEd and #MeToo, Legislature adjourns

Aguilera said he had not yet decided how to disperse the extra money coming to his district. That includes how much of a pay increase school staff would receive, he said.

Although Ducey has said those raises can come from a pot of money known as "district additional assistance," he said that pot of money does not automatically increase with inflation each year. Meaning, he has said, pay raises to custodial staff or teacher supervisors would eat slowly into the fund.

Aguilera also said he needs to balance out the raises so they are equitable based on teacher and staff experience.

But, he said, pay issues are intensely personal. "There's going to be people that understand and others that don't," he said.

The 20 percent figure touted by the governor remains a concern.

"It's almost like false hope," Aguilera said.

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