Arizona GOP wants to extend teacher pay boost. Education advocates are skeptical

Teacher pay in Arizona could go higher than the national average under a plan announced by Republican leaders Monday to renew a 2016 initiative that expanded the money schools get from the State Land Trust.

Proposition 123 — which now provides public schools with more than $300 million per year — expires in 2025, so voters would need to approve the plan in a 2024 ballot measure. If it passes, lawmakers said they will begin putting the money in a new teacher pay fund, while also appropriating a similar amount each year from the state's General Fund so schools don't lose money.

Public school advocates were immediately skeptical of the idea. They noted the state's budget is already $400 million short for this year, and that lawmakers could reduce the original funding under certain conditions. But Republicans say it's the best way to boost teacher funding without raising taxes.

Led by state Senate President Warren Petersen, more than a dozen legislators and state School Superintendent Tom Horne gathered on the lawn at the Arizona Legislature with a teacher, holding signs declaring: "Teachers Deserve a Raise."

"This is going to make Arizona extremely competitive in being able to attract good, quality teachers," Petersen said.

The lawmakers intend to craft a bill that could be passed by Republicans next year with a majority vote and referred to the ballot without Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' signature. The new proposition will go by a different number and have some new provisions, not all of which have yet been hammered out. Petersen said teachers would make an average of $4,000 more per year under the plan, increasing their average pay to over $60,000 a year.

Hobbs' spokesman, Christian Slater, didn't return a text message after the press conference. Earlier in the day, Hobbs told reporters her team was doing a "deep dive into the budget" to determine the extent of budget constraints expected next year but didn’t expound on the Republicans’ idea.

At an unrelated press conference on Nov. 15, Hobbs said her office is looking at options to extend Proposition 123 “so our schools don’t experience that funding cliff.” Teacher pay needs to be addressed, but the proposition money must still fund other educational needs.

“I have not looked at the details of the Republican proposal. But I think there'll be a lot of lively conversation” about the proposition’s 2025 expiration, Hobbs said. “We're wrapping up the work of our educator retention Task Force and teacher pay is a big theme that we're seeing emerge from that.”

Republicans took the opportunity to blast the Biden administration for ongoing inflation problems, and education advocates for allegedly misspending school funding. Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix said that a 2018 plan to raise teacher pay by 20% only raised it by 16%. Gress proposed a $700 million plan to give each teacher a $10,000 raise this year, but it was rejected in March by Democrats as an unworkable political stunt.

Horne said boosting teacher pay was crucial if Arizona wanted to stop other states from encouraging teachers to move out. Forty percent quit in the first four years, a figure that rises 63% over nine years, he said.

"This is a real emergency for us," Horne said.

Julie Garcia, who works as a kindergarten teacher for Palo Verde Elementary School in Casa Grande, joined Horne and the lawmakers at the podium to express her hopes for the plan.

"There are more times than I would like to admit that my family has had to wait a few days to get our groceries or gas," she said. "This initiative will ensure the dollars will end up where they belong."

Education: Arizona charter students perform below national average on Nation's Report Card test

GOP plan yields mixed reactions

Former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey pushed Proposition 123 as a method to address a lawsuit requiring the state to shore up school funding neglected since the Great Recession. Voters narrowly approved the Legislature-referred ballot measure in 2016, nearly tripling the amount of money the Land Trust can provide schools with the new amount going to basic school funding.

Since then, schools have received an extra $250-$325 million per year. But Proposition 123 had a 10-year expiration, meaning the Land Trust will provide much less funding unless voters renew it.

Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, said she liked the overall idea of helping public schools, while noting that Republicans have consistently rejected the association's ideas on how to do that. She'll wait to see the actual bill language before passing judgment on the plan, she said.

Beth Lewis of Save Our Schools knocked the move as "smoke and mirrors." The pay raise would be "minimal," she said, while the state continues failing to address a long-running shortfall in funding school facilities and continues to grow its expanded voucher program for private schools.

She said Republicans are trying to gain political points because they've seen successes in bond elections around the state, and how important education issues were in Ohio elections.

Lewis and others noted Proposition 123 requires the state to use General Fund money to keep up with the costs of inflation in public schools even after it's expired in 2026. But under the measure, if K-12 funding becomes more than 49% of the overall budget, lawmakers could legally choose to reduce the funding. A 2023 report by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee says K-12 funding will reach 49.7% of the budget in 2026.

"They are creating a giant house of cards," she said.

Petersen and other lawmakers said they wouldn't reduce that funding.

"We're going to backfill that $300M with general fund so that this $300 million, if the voters approve it, will be new money," said Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, told The Arizona Republic after the event. " I wouldn't truly be up here if it was a shell game."

The Legislature has also added $50-75 million extra to the Proposition 123 collections each year, but it's not clear if that will continue.

Jeff DeWit, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, was one of Proposition 123's chief critics when he was state Treasurer in 2016. He doesn't like the renewal plan any better. He calls it "raiding" the constitutionally protected Permanent School Trust Fund paid for by the Land Trust.

"It's the rough equivalent to paying an employee more by taking the extra money out of their own 401K," he said, noting that his wife is a former teacher. "Their pay should be funded through the state budget and not tied to the unpredictable nature of voter decisions."

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X.com: @raystern.

Reporter Stacey Barchenger contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona GOP lawmakers want Prop 123 extension to boost teacher pay