Georgia teachers will get a $3,000 pay raise starting July 1, after the House and Senate Thursday overwhelmingly approved the state’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget. The raise applies to all certified teachers and certified personnel including counselors, social workers, psychologists, special education specialists, speech and language pathologists, media specialists and technology specialists.
Lawmakers budgeted $2.8 million in the spending bill to give bus drivers, lunchroom workers, and school nurses a 2% pay raise. State and University System of Georgia employees will also get a 2% raise.
The record $27.5 billion budget passed both chambers of the state legislature with bipartisan support. The Senate unanimously approved it while the House passed it 165-11.
“With this bipartisan budget, we have shown that Democrats and Republicans can set politics aside and put hardworking Georgians first,” says Governor Brian Kemp.
Kemp calls the teacher pay raise a down payment on his campaign promise of a $5,000 raise.
“This balanced, conservative budget reflects our values, funds our priorities, puts the safety of our families first, and delivers a well-deserved $3,000 pay raise for Georgia educators,” he says.
10th District State Representative Terry Rogers says, overall, “it’s a very good budget.”
“The budget, as a whole, is fiscally responsible. It is very fair across the board,” Rogers says. He applauds the efforts of the appropriations subcommittees and calls the process of crafting the budget a “team effort.”
Record budget reflects legislative priorities
The FY 2020 budget represents an increase of $1.05 billion, or 3.95%, over the current fiscal budget. Of the funds appropriated for next year, 55% is for education; 22% for health and human services; 8% for public safety; 8% for transportation and economic development; and 7% for general government agencies.
Obviously, the big winner was education.
“One of our concerns going into this budget process was that almost 44% of all teachers leave within their first couple of years. We need to change that,” Rep. Rogers tells Now Habersham. “We need to make sure we keep good teachers so that we can maintain a strong work force and maintain our position as the number one state in the nation to do business.”
The teacher pay raise is one of the largest in state history. Teachers have not seen a bump in their pay like this since Zell Miller was governor. Miller pushed for four consecutive 6% raises his last four years in office.
Since the Great Recession in the mid-2000s, teacher raises in Georgia have been small or nonexistent.
Robin Skelton is president of the Habersham Association of Educators. She says the last statewide teacher pay raise was 2.5% in 2008.
“It’s just great to see that our legislature is showing that they value education,” Skelton said after hearing the news that the pay raise passed. She was especially relieved to hear that not only teachers are getting the raise, but certified personnel too. Rep. Rogers says lawmakers initially weren’t sure that would happen. In the eleventh hour they were able to make some adjustments to free up enough money to give all teachers and certified personnel the same raise.
By law, Georgia legislators must pass a balanced budget before the end of each legislative session. The current session is scheduled to end April 2.
This article has been updated
