A bipartisan bill that would raise teacher pay and extend the deadline for Iowa school districts to submit their budgets to the state passed in the Iowa House Thursday.
House File 2630 would increase starting annual pay for teachers from $33,500 to $47,500 this fall, with a jump to $50,000 next school year and $22 million in appropriations for schools to do so.
The bill would also raise minimum wage for educational support staff, including paraeducators, to $15 per hour and provides $14 million in additional appropriations to fund the raise.
The bill gained bipartisan support on the House floor Thursday afternoon and passed nearly unanimously. Rep. Mark Cisneros, R-Muscatine, was the only no-vote on the bill.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds set out raising teacher pay as one of her key priorities in the 2024 legislative session in her Condition of the State Address in January.
Reynolds proposed a larger increase, raising starting teacher pay to $50,000 in the first year and $62,000 for teachers with 12 years of experience.
“The bill achieves significant goals set forth by Governor Reynolds to move Iowa’s minimum starting teacher salary to $50,000 and I thank her for setting a bold target that will vault Iowa to the top of the list to attract teachers in terms of pay,” Rep. Bill Gustoff, R-Des Moines, said.
House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst said she appreciated the bipartisan nature of the bill and that both parties could agree on raising teacher pay.
“Right now, here’s an opportunity to show everyone else that the House has the right idea in mind,” Konfrst said. “Thank you for including paraprofessionals and others and thank you for taking it out of the AEA bill — this is a good bill.”
Bill pushes back budget deadline amid fight over school funding
The House amended the bill during debate on the bill Thursday to push back the date for school districts to certify their budgets.
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The amendment pushes the deadline back from March 15 to 30 days after the House’s Supplemental State Aid bill, House File 2613, is enacted. Supplemental State Growth tells the department of management how much the state’s payments to school districts will increase for the next budget year.
Current law requires legislators to pass the state percent of growth within the first 30 days of the legislative session to give school districts enough time to budget.