Ohio bill would increase base teacher salaries to $50K

“In the coming years, Ohio will need a more robust education system to accommodate the increase in job opportunities across the state,” Miller said. “Teachers will be the backbone of the economic boost, but our state needs to catch up in compensation.”

According to the fiscal analysis of the bill from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan office that analyses bills from the Ohio Legislature, about 55% of the 98,743 teachers in Ohio’s public schools would be impacted.

The total cost to raise salaries for those who don’t currently meet minimum salary requirements would be $541.1 million, according to the LSC. About 56% of the cost would be attributed to raising salaries for teachers who have a master’s degree or higher, according to the analysis.

The proposal comes at a time when Ohio’s school districts are struggling to pass renewal levies and requests for new tax money. According to an Ohio School Board Association and Support Ohio Schools analysis, half —71 out of the 142 levies — proposed in Ohio in the November election passed.

The LSC bill analysis found most of the cost would be in rural and small-town school districts, who would bear about two-thirds of the cost. Piqua and Troy could considered small-town school districts. A local example of a rural district is Franklin Monroe in Darke County.

The LSC says these types of school districts have relatively lower average salaries than other district types.

Rural districts have about 90% of their teachers below the state proposed minimum, according to the analysis, while small towns have about 78% below. Suburban districts, though, have 37% of their teachers below the proposed minimum, while urban districts have 40% of their teachers below the proposed minimums.

Educational service centers, who provide services on a contract basis with schools that have difficulty affording such services but are required to by law, have 85% of their teachers below the state proposed minimums, according to the analysis.

But career tech schools would barely be impacted by the change. Almost 99% of the teachers in these districts make more than $50,000, according to the analysis.

Reactions to the bill

The presidents of both the major teachers’ unions in Ohio said they would be in favor of the bill, but they both said they wanted to see more funding for public schools in the next state budget.

“Many Ohio school districts are still struggling to recruit and retain educators due to a long-term teacher shortage,” said Ohio Federation of Teachers president Melissa Cropper.

She said this is exacerbated by the income gap between teachers and other similarly educated professionals, which has climbed to 26.6%, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“Raising the minimum salary for teachers is a commonsense solution to this problem,” Cropper said. “The funding to make this happen should be provided by the legislature by fully funding the Fair School Funding Plan in next year’s state budget.”

Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro agreed, saying Ohio lawmakers should support the bill in this General Assembly, and finish the work to finish funding the Fair School Funding Plan, which updated school funding formulas.

“Our leaders must fulfill Ohio’s promise to fully and fairly fund our public schools so they can attract and retain caring, qualified educators to provide the high-quality education every student deserves – no exceptions,” DiMauro said.

Greg Lawson, research fellow at the Buckeye Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, said the organization has long said the state needs a pay for performance system for teachers.

“Some teachers need to be paid a lot more than they are now, others may be overcompensated. But one thing is for sure, a one size fits all approach is not going to solve the problem of teacher recruitment and retention,” he said.

The mandatory minimum salary would lead to several negative downstream consequences, he said. It may be harder for districts to adequately compensate high-performing teachers due to higher costs of paying other teachers. It also may exacerbate citizens’ feelings about the recent large property tax increases in counties like Montgomery and Greene. There may also be consequences for pension costs, as the State Teachers Retirement System is already wanting to increase the taxpayer contribution to its pension fund.