A bill that would raise the floor for teacher pay in Indiana passed out of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee this week. Lawmakers disagreed on how much to raise the pay floor, but the bill still passed committee unanimously.
SB 146 would raise the minimum teacher pay from $40,000 to $45,000 per year.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D-Indianapolis) said that is still not enough. He introduced an amendment that would raise minimum teacher pay to $65,000 instead.
“$65,000 will help us close the gap on the 1,300 open positions in the state and will make us competitive with the Midwest region for educators,” he said.
Sen. Linda Rogers (R-Granger), the bill’s author, said she would like to accept Qaddoura’s amendment, but it is not practical to increase the pay schedule that much.
“I would love to see us at $65,000, but we have to remember that we have a tight budget and school corporations also have tight budgets, and so when you move them to $65,000, you’re moving everyone else up at the same time,” she said.
Qaddoura’s amendment was defeated along with two others that would have added school counselors to the teacher pay scale.
READ MORE: New teacher compensation report shows average Indiana teacher salaries grow to $60,000
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The committee passed an amendment to remove a provision that would have allowed teachers to utilize state health insurance. Rogers said she will ask the Indiana Department of Education to conduct a feasibility study before considering whether to add that language back into the bill.
"The administration needs to be vetted more carefully to make sure that it's going to work," she said.
The bill will now move to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Kirsten is our education reporter. Contact her at kadair@wfyi.org or follow her on Twitter at @kirsten_adair.