Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) released a statement on Wednesday vowing to not accept a salary in the event of a government shutdown.
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Virginia is 2023’s best state for teachers, according to a study conducted by personal finance website WalletHub.
WalletHub ranked states by 24 weighted metrics in two major categories: Opportunity and competition and academic and work environment. Virginia placed first for the former and eleventh for the latter, but opportunity and competition was weighted more than twice as heavily as academic and work environment because “competitive salaries and job security are integral to a well-balanced personal and professional life,” according to the study.
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Teacher compensation across Pennsylvania grew over the past decade, despite claims from officials that low salaries and high stress scare educators from the state in droves.
The data, gleaned from a recent report from the National Education Association – one of the country’s largest labor unions – found that teachers in Pennsylvania earned an average of $73,072 during the 2021-22 school year – the 11th highest rate in the nation.
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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin elected to donate his second-quarter salary to the Virginia Veterans Services Foundation, a group that helps fund various veteran-focused services in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The donation, which totaled $43,750, follows previous donations of his gubernatorial salary and Youngkin’s commitment to assist individuals who have served our country.
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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin recently announced in a press release that he will donate his first-quarter salary to the Virginia Law Enforcement Assistance Program (VALEAP).
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One Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin wants to pay lawmakers less in order to get them to think more about service.
Republican Kevin Nicholson wants to classify the State Assembly and State Senate as part-time jobs, and cut their $55,141 yearly salaries.
“My feeling is that pay and benefits should be paid out in accordance with work performance,” Nicholson told The Center Square. “Moving to a part-time legislature, a citizen legislature, will allow more people to serve their state and their communities.”
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Pennsylvania state Rep. Jim Struzzi is trying to expand a law that provides for firefighters and police who are injured on the job to cover other types of public servants.
The Pennsylvania Heart and Lung Act of 1935 allows police officers and paid firefighters medical and wage benefits if they are temporarily disabled because of an injury on the job.
The Enforcement Officer Disability Benefits Law of 1954 was passed to provide police, park guards, and paid (but not volunteer) firefighters full income replacement when injured in the line of duty.
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Arizona State Rep. Teresa Martinez (R-Maricopa) is calling for Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to drop out of the governor’s race due to firing a staffer while at the Arizona Legislature. Talonya Adams won a multimillion dollar jury verdict against the legislature for racial discrimination by Hobbs, her former boss, last week, the second lawsuit she’s won in the case. A jury found that Adams was fired in 2015 because she complained that her relatively lower pay was the result of racial and sex discrimination.
Martinez told The Arizona Sun Times, “I think it’s horrible that we have an elected state official who would have such behavior toward any race. I think anyone running for statewide office should look at people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. For this woman to win two lawsuits where two courts found her showing racism — she should not be considered for any post in the state of Arizona, including the one she has now.”
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About a quarter of teacher vacancies across the state remain unfilled in 2021, with 55.4% of the vacancies are filled by teachers who do not meet the state’s standard certification requirements, according to a Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association survey of 145 school districts and charter schools.
This marks the sixth consecutive year of teacher shortages in Arizona. Approximately a quarter of teacher vacancies have remained unfilled a month into each school year since 2016, ASPAA’s press release said.
Twenty-six percent of teaching positions were open a few weeks into the school year, a 6% increase from the 21% vacancy rate in 2019, even though there were 400 less positions to fill this year than in 2019. As of Sept. 10, 2021, ASPAA counted 1,698.67 vacancies in its Oct. 12 report.
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One of Georgia’s top law enforcement officials is calling on Georgia lawmakers to increase taxpayer-funded pay and benefits for state law enforcement employees.
Georgia Department of Public Safety Chief of Staff Maj. Joshua Lamb told members of the Senate Retirement Security for Georgians Study Committee on Thursday it is “mandatory” to increase pay to recruit and keep current law enforcement employees.
Lamb said the department has a 22% turnover rate and annual job applications have decreased by 60% over the past three years.
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The average public school classroom teacher in Tennessee made $52,596 during the 2019-20 school year, according to a new report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability.
The average salary rises to $55,210 if it includes classroom teachers and positions such as librarians, school counselors and principals, and it jumps to $55,554 if it includes all personnel in a school district with an educator’s license.
The Tennessee Department of Education’s budget was increased by $219 million in this year’s budget, which included $120 million for teacher raises, allowing teachers with no experience a staring salary of $38,000 a year or more. With an advanced degree, the minimum starting salary is $41,605.
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U.S. News & World Report issued its list this week of the annual best places to live, and Phoenix came in at No. 40 of the 150 most populous metro areas. The city jumped up 13 places from last year. The report emphasized Phoenix’s relatively low cost of living, warm weather, and thriving job market. The rankings are based on quality of life, job market, value of living, and desire of people to live there.
Phoenix may have scored well this year due to a stable economy. Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News, said in a news release, “It shouldn’t be a surprise that many metro areas that saw unemployment levels skyrocket in 2020 fell in the rankings, but those with greater employment stability tended to fare well.”
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Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry has received a $100,000 raise, making him one of the highest-paid unelected state officials in Georgia.
The State Transportation Board unanimously approved McMurry’s 29% raise Thursday without debate, increasing his salary from $350,000 to $450,000.
McMurry started his career with the department in 1990. He was the planning director before being appointed commissioner by the board in 2015.
McMurry’s salary in fiscal year 2015 was more than $165,000. McMurry’s salary climbed from $185,000 in fiscal year 2016 to $250,000 in fiscal year 2017 and $336,000 in fiscal year 2018. He used an average of $6,900 in travel expenses over the past six year
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration paid former CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) Jeff Mason $128,500 –26 weeks of pay – to “retire” last year.
The Detroit News reported Mason’s deal was among eight other employees separated from MEDC, bringing the total cost of payouts to $308,623 over the last four years. Those agreements included non-disparagement clauses limiting ex-employees from diminishing the MEDC’s reputation.
However, agency employees said the deals weren’t funded by taxpayer money.
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A Republican lawmaker put forward an amendment Thursday that would suspend Gov. Tim Walz’s salary during the course of his peacetime emergency declaration.
The move is the latest escalation in a battle between Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the best course of action in addressing the coronavirus pandemic. House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) announced last weekend that he would block a public works bill from being passed until Walz agreed to relinquish his emergency powers.
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Compensation for federal, state, and local government employees cost U.S. taxpayers $1.9 trillion in 2016. This amounts to an average of $15,176 from every household in the United States. President Trump recently moved to rein in some of these costs by canceling pay raises for federal civilian employees, who received $331 billion in compensation during 2017. Some politicians and an association of federal employees have criticized Trump for this action, saying that federal workers are underpaid and deserve a raise. However, a broad range of studies have found that most federal civilian employees are paid better than comparable workers in the private-sector. Trump’s Action and Criticism of It When private-sector incomes rise, federal law generally requires across-the-board pay raises for most federal civilian employees. The law gives added raises to federal workers in certain localities if their compensation is lower than private-sector workers in those areas. The law also allows the president of the U.S. to overrule these raises, and President Trump recently did so, writing: We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases. … Specifically, I have determined that for 2019, both across the board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at…
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President Trump announced his second paycheck will be donated to the Department of Education. In a statement, the Trump Administration earmarked the funds specifically to host a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) camp for students. It’s not the first time President Trump has sought to focus attention on the teaching of the hard sciences, the statement points out. Earlier in the year, President Trump signed the INSPIRE Act which encourages NASA to have women and girls participate in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and to pursue careers in aerospace. He also signed the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act which aims to enable the National Science Foundation to support women in the sciences. In the last pay period, President Trump kept his promise to not take his $400,000 a year salary by donating his first quarter check to the Department of Interior.
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