Bill to Boost Teacher Pay Dies

96631972Due to significant misinformation from the teacher’s unions and lack of support in the Senate and Governor’s office, Chamber-supported SB 10 died in the House Thursday when it was not called for a vote.

Senate Bill 10 would have allowed school corporations to provide supplemental funding in excess of a teacher’s salary; this would have been extremely helpful in filling high-need positions.

The Indiana Chamber has always supported paying good teachers more. Being able to give administrators the flexibility to provide additional funding on top of salaries is an important step toward recruiting teachers in areas such as STEM subjects and special education. We believe this flexibility would have helped add another incentive to assist with Indiana’s teacher shortage.

The Senate killed a similar provision in HB 1004 last week and Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne) publicly asked House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) to follow suit. The Governor’s office also had tepid support for the bill. In the end, due to the significant concern that the bill might not be signed by the Governor, Bosma decided not to put his caucus through a difficult vote.

We are very disappointed that a pro-teacher, pro-superintendent flexibility bill was not able to pass the Legislature this session, but still thank Speaker Bosma for his overall assistance on HB 1004 and SB 10.

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