Arizona State Senator J.D. Mesnard (R-Chandler) shared in his weekly update to constituents that his bill, aimed at ensuring school districts comply with the state transparency laws, is moving along through the legislature.
“Given the importance of having transparency with such a critical topic as teacher pay, I sponsored a bill (SB 1599) that would add some teeth to the law and instruct the Arizona Department of Education [ADE] to engage if a school district is not in compliance. The bill has passed the Senate and is poised for a House Floor vote,” Mesnard said.
"In 2018, I authored the law providing 20% pay raises for our teachers. However, with districts in charge of their budgets, we wanted a mechanism that would help ensure the dollars we appropriated actually make it into the wallets of our educators."
Read more in this week's… pic.twitter.com/8UJ1dLRA8F
— AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) March 20, 2023
In 2018, when Mesnard served as the State House Speaker, he crafted a bill to increase teacher pay in the state by 20 percent. The state legislature is not responsible for budgeting the funds they allocate to school districts, so to ensure those funds would reach educators’ wallets, Mesnard included measures. Under the law, school districts must display on their website the average current year salaries for teachers in the district, the average previous year’s salaries, and the dollar increase between the years.
However, Mesnard shared that since this law was enacted, he found that many districts were not complying with it by displaying the necessary information.
“Taking a look at districts across the state, we saw that 70 percent of the sample that we took, about 30 districts, were not complying with the law, and that’s really troubling,” Mesnard said.
In this week's edition of "The Right Note," Senator @JDMesnard discusses the importance of making sure money appropriated for a pay increase for teachers is actually making it into their wallets. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/e1WjCm8IOH
— AZSenateRepublicans (@AZSenateGOP) March 21, 2023
Mesnard said that SB 1599 is a follow-up to his previous bills, and should it become law, it would direct the ADE to take action when there is a violation. Beginning in January 2024, if the ADE finds any school districts not displaying average salaries on their websites, it must notify the district. If the violation is not fixed within 60 days of notice, then the ADE may enforce a civil penalty of $5,000 each day that the violation continues. Additionally, the bill would require the ADE to post an annual report of each school district’s average teacher salaries on its website.
The bill passed through the Senate in February, but only with partisan support from Republicans. Since then, it has begun moving through the House and recently passed the House Education Committee (HEC).
However, State Representative Jennifer Pawlik (D-Chandler) proposed an amendment to the bill, which would enforce the same requirements this bill puts onto school districts onto charter schools.
In response, Mesnard told the committee he recognizes the attempt to be fair to all schools, but he also acknowledged that charter and district schools do not work the same. Charter schools would be looked at individually, so Masnard stated the civil penalty would hit a single charter school much harder than an entire school district. He said that while he is open to holding charter schools accountable, he would want to ensure the punishment is proportional first.
“I’m not trying to do anything to hurt our schools. I am trying to establish transparency for our teacher pay,” Mesnard said while defending his bill in the HEC. “Not trying to do anything nefarious or punishing, but I think the statute should mean something, and I think people want to know what our teachers are paid.”
SB 1599 passed the committee without adopting the amendment, and if the bill can pass the House Floor, it will move on to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ (D) deck for a final decision.
Additionally, the House has a bill from Rep. Matt Gress (R-Phoenix) that would increase teacher pay by $10,000 over the next two years. However, much like Mesnard’s legislation, the bill has not received much support from Democrats.
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Neil Jones is a reporter for The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Neil on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “J.D. Mesnard” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 3.0.
