SANDY, Utah — A Utah State Representative is accusing the Jordan School District of abusing House Bill 215, which doubled the state funds for teacher salary raises.
Rep. Candice Pierucci said the district’s budget proposal appears to use the $4,200 allocated by the state to offset its own required salary increase for teachers.
“We actually put language in there that said a district could not use this as a windfall for their own budgets,” said Pierucci of HB 215, “And that they essentially saying a district needs to give the traditional pay increase they would to teachers and this would be on top of that.”
The district is proposing a pay raise for teachers of between $5,125-$6,000, and that’s including state funds. It also proposed a .1 percent increase for cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
Herriman High School teacher Kelli Nielsen said the proposal is concerning.
“When it came out, it was teachers are going to be getting that money from the state but hardly anything from the district,” said Nielsen, “Like our usual step up and then basically for cost of living adjustment. $50 for the entire year feels like more of a slap in the face than if they gave them nothing. Like $50 for a cost-of-living raise.”
For context, Pierucci said the Granite School District has offered teachers a $4,200 pay increase, on top of the state’s $4,200.
Additionally, she said Salt Lake City is giving a 3% COLA increase, and Alpine School District is giving a 2% increase to its teachers.
“The district has announced it's a $925 pay increase they're going to give to teachers,” said Pierucci. “If they can honestly say without House Bill 215 passing, they would have just given teachers a 150.1% cost of living increase and 875 then they can defend that and they can justify that. But we made it very clear in House Bill 215 that this was supposed to be on top of what a district was already giving.”
The Jordan School District Board of Education released the following statement: “Teacher compensation has been a priority in Jordan School District for years. As a result, starting teacher pay increased from $34,339 in 2016 to $57,330 in 2023. That is a 67% increase over eight years. The Board of Education has not held a final vote on the 2023-24 tentative teacher pay raise agreement, which would increase teacher salaries between $5,125 and $6,000. Compensation increases for classified staff like bus drivers, custodians, and lunch staff was a priority this year due to the important work they do supporting teachers in the classroom and due to staffing shortages. The legislature also intended WPU money increases be spent on raising salaries for classified staff.”
Pierucci said she doesn’t disagree with the argument of allocating money to classified staff, but said there is enough money to do that while increasing teacher pay as well.
"We gave a 6.6% increase to the weighted pupil unit. It was a historic amount. We gave an additional $915 million to education on top of what we historically give,” she said, “So in my mind, it doesn't have to be an either-or that you can do both, and other districts are showing you can do both.”
The proposal has not been passed. It will be brought to the table at the Board of Education meeting on June 13th.
Nielsen said she hopes either the budget plan changes before then, or the proposal is shot down.
“We end up losing really excellent teachers who just need to move to make more money,” said Nielsen, “And I really love teaching in Jordan District. I want good teachers to stay here. And so I'm really hoping they'll vote ‘no,’ because I don't want teachers to leave.”
