Jacob Ogles
After years of offering incentives and salary hikes to new teachers, a House budget proposal prioritizes pay for experienced educators.
A proposed House budget released on Friday called for $100 million to support a pay increase for “veteran teachers.” The proposed language offers more details on why those teachers could benefit from it.
The budget provides funding to boost pay for any teacher with at least two years of full-time teaching experience in a Florida public school. The language would require each school district and charter school in Florida to use 0.53% of its base Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) funding amount for this purpose.
The House budget sets aside almost $11.3 billion in the FEFP budget, compared to about $8.43 billion in the Senate budget.
Under the budget, more than $1.25 billion in state appropriations for the FEFP would be provided “to maintain prior year salary increases provided to classroom teachers and other instructional personnel through the Teacher Salary Increase Allocation.”
The Florida Education Association, the state’s top teachers’ union, listed teacher salaries as its top priority ahead of this year’s legislation.
The organization pointed to data showing Florida has the second lowest average teacher salaries of any state. For the 2022-2023 school year, the average salary for teachers in the state was just over $53,000 a year, lower than any state but West Virginia. The national average, by comparison, is more than $69,500. California pays teachers an average salary greater than $95,000, the highest average in the nation.
In recent years, Gov. Ron DeSantis has focused on increasing starting salaries for teachers in an effort to address a teacher shortage.
However, unions have said the state has not boosted the budget enough to improve teacher pay across the board.
4 comments
KathrynA
March 31, 2025 at 7:12 am
The first rational proposals from the state regarding education in a long time!! Now, in Polk County, they are giving raises, but more than a year late and yesterday, it was reported the teachers will pay much more of health costs and they already are. If you want to retain teachers, who are already leaving in droves, this needs to be addressed too. I taught school and was always sick as you are in a closed room with kids, who are often sick— a Petri dish effect and so contagious illnesses often higher for teachers. But at least, this proposal is a start in the right direction
Sandra Siewbaran
March 31, 2025 at 7:50 am
Most teachers are in this profession are doing so because of their love for teaching and love for chat. However, love does not pay the bills. Some teachers that I know stay after school at least until 7 pm to plan more, continue grading students work and organizing their classrooms. Teachers arrive early and leave late to go home to their own families and children. It is time now that we begin to show more care and consideration for teachers and education personnel in areas of increasing their salaries, higher budgets for the purchase of classroom supplies and also employing more teacher’s assistants to help them! Let’s support these teachers who touch and shape the lives of our future leaders, scientists and innovators of the 21st Century! 🎓👍🙂🙏💕
Sandra Siewbaran
March 31, 2025 at 8:01 am
Most teachers who are in this profession are doing so because of their love for teaching and love for all children .However, love does not pay the bills. Some teachers that I know remain after school at least until 7 pm to plan more, continue grading students work and organizing their classrooms. Teachers arrive early and leave late to go home to their own families and children. It is time now that we begin to show more care and consideration for teachers and education personnel in areas of increasing their salaries, higher budgets for the purchase of classroom supplies and also employing more teacher’s assistants to help them! Let’s support these teachers who touch and shape the lives of our future leaders, scientists and innovators of the 21st Century! 🎓👍🙂🙏💕
Oscar
March 31, 2025 at 7:23 pm
Comparing teacher compensation without reference to cost of living including state and local taxes is folly. A market exists (albeit not entirely free) for teachers. That is what should determine their compensation, not politicians seeking to curry favor with niche voters. If public school teachers are unhappy with their taxpayer funded salaries they are more than welcome to teach at private schools. But, alas, private schools often pay less than taxpayer funded public schools, particularly when viewed on a total compensation basis. This severely undermines any argument that public school teachers are underpaid.