It has been five months since Prop 123 barely passed by a super thin margin. After years of near drought level finances, many districts and teachers are beginning to get some relief.
There’s quite a bit of anger about how schools are using funds made available through these funds. Much of that anger is based on anecdotes and half truths that do not truly show how school boards are planning to use the money. So here are some facts. Once the proposition passed, $300 million was released to public education. There is over $3 billion more planned to be released over the next ten years. With that said, all that schools have right now, is $300 million to share. Each district gets a portion based on student enrollment so some districts get more, some get less. Schools are in dire need right now. Schools must maintain buildings and support staff, work to retain teachers, provide instructional materials, etc… Schools get to allocate their portion of this $300 million to meet their most immediate needs. The purpose of Prop. 123 was to help schools catch up to the point they should have been at based on proper inflation funding.
In the past five months, most districts have only seen minimal relief, if any relief at all. The teachers in my district will receive a 6% lump check in November. Teachers in Lake Havasu, Arizona will not see any pay increase as the money will barely cover the increase cost of their insurance package. Other teachers around Arizona are only seeing an extra $50 on their paychecks. $300 million sounds like an astronomical amount of money. However, if it was divided equally among the nearly 60,000 teachers in Arizona, each teacher would only get an extra $5,000 a year. Broken down into 12 months with taxes and insurance, each teacher would take home about $300 extra a month. That’s not life changing.
Voters and teachers need to keep in mind that this is a first step. There is still $3 billion to be released over the next few years. We are not going to fix our financial crisis in five months. Give us time. We will get there.
Comments 3
Donnie- I loved reading your post this week. I don’t think the average Arizonan realizes just how far behind the power curve we are in teacher pay. Moving here from out of state I took a 40% pay cut with no hope of ever getting a raise. Our new teacher this year cried when she found out how much she would take home every two weeks. She had to move in with parents just to stay afloat and stay on top of student loans. We have hit rock bottom and now were drilling for the core. We need to raise salaries or risk a generation of under educated youth in this state..
I am still feeling the fury of Prop 123! This has got to be one of the finest (read: worst) examples of the complicated politics that impact education. The idea to use State Land Trust monies to pay legislative debt is simply a dodge! The Arizona Constitution ALREADY stated that the interest from the SLT was meant to fund public schooling; all Prop 123 did was increase that percentage! In short, it enables one politician to claim they’ve “solved” the problem despite the fact that they’ve skirted their owed duty to the public. Worst of all: was there a better choice? This was the proverbial lesser of two evils.
This is a really important post, Donnie, because it’s very important that voters remember that the passage of one Prop does not solve, or fund, all educational needs. In other words, when schools ask for more money in the future, it will be because they need it.
Thank you so much for sharing the facts around what is happening in local schools. Reading the comments below it sounds like you have started some good discourse between peers. It is interesting how differently people feel based on what their position is in the school. I wonder how custodians, administrators, and others who are not in the classroom feel about the use of Prop. 123 funds???