Committee approves $2,500 raise for teachers, but removes school district involvement

It seems everybody on Capitol Hill wants to give educators a nice raise.

But how to go about it?

The question turned into a drama of sorts Friday morning in the House Education Committee, with the starting pay-raise bill upstaged and ultimately, stripped of a main character: Principals.

Rep. John Dougall, R-American Fork, proposed boosting the state's per-student funding formula, the weighted pupil unit (WPU), by 3.5 percent. That would equal $86 million, he said, to give educators a $2,500 raise, like lawmakers did last year.

The WPU is the old-school way to give teachers a raise.

It goes out to districts and is based on the number of kids they have and what those kids' needs are, such as special education. School districts can use that money to pay teachers, custodians, secretaries, bus drivers, or use it to fund skyrocketing insurance.

The Utah School Employees Association supports Dougall's WPU boost in the original HB212.

"I think it's pretty apparent I'm a fan of local control," Dougall told the committee.

But the committee was stumped.

The Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee this week set priorities, including a 3 percent WPU increase and a $2,500 raise for teachers, and forwarded them to the Executive Appropriations Committee, which forms the state budget. That's typically how the process works.

So why the separate bill?

There is no other bill to specifically address teacher compensation like last year, Dougall noted.

Enter Rep. Gage Froerer, R-Huntsville.

Froerer convinced the committee to delete Dougall's HB212 and replace it with his own version, which gives every educator a straight-up $2,500 raise.

"Rather than have doubt if it's going to go the way we want it to go ... let's directly appropriate it to teachers," Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George said.

The idea is to complete the goal of boosting beginning teacher salaries by $5,000 over two years to ease a teacher shortage.

"This puts the educators salary and compensation package up there with other industries to attract and keep good teachers," Froerer said. "I do have some concerns if this money is put in the WPU, will it flow ... to the teacher? I do have a good feeling (their raises wouldn't) be $2,500."