Florida teachers will get $1.25 billion in state-allocated raises, DeSantis says

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that the state budget will include $1.25 billion for teacher raises, which he said is nearly $250 million more than what was allocated last year.

Florida teachers will get a raise this year, even if their school district is facing a tough budget year.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that the state budget will include $1.25 billion for teacher raises, which he said is nearly $250 million more than what was allocated last year.

The announcement, filled with praise for charter schools and scorn for teachers’ unions was made at the City of Hialeah Educational Academy, a city-run charter school.

But there’s no guarantee some teachers will get a higher raise than last year.

In South Florida, school districts combined money earmarked with the state with local dollars, referendum dollars and COVID relief money to come up with raises. COVID money has now expired. Enrollment has declined in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, which decreases funding for the districts.

Districts also have new expenses, including settlements with charter schools that sued districts, saying they were shortchanged for referendum dollars in 2018.

Palm Beach County has agreed to pay $54.9 million for charter schools, although the district said the money had already been set aside. Broward is facing a bill of more than $80 million from a settlement, and district officials have warned it come out of the pot of 2022 referendum dollars budgeted for teacher supplements.

DeSantis said with the latest allocation, teachers will have received $4.6 billion in money to increase teacher pay since 2020.

During the event, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said many districts have been slow to give teachers raises in the past due to lengthy negotiations with teachers’ unions.

He said that’s an issue that wasn’t faced by teachers at charter schools, most of whom are not unionized.

“The unions need to get out of the way,” Diaz said. “They need to do a better job of getting these dollars into the pocketbooks of teachers and not waiting for money that was appropriated and effective in July to be in teachers’ pocketbooks in May. That’s absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.”

Republican state leaders also complain that unions use their money to give their leadership high salaries and support Democratic causes and candidates. The state Legislature has taken several actions viewed as anti-teachers’ union in recent years, including threatening unions with decertification if their membership falls below 50% and prohibiting school districts from collecting union dues through payroll deduction.

Lt. Gov. Jeannette Nuñez suggested Monday that teachers should consider dropping their membership from teachers’ unions.

“The union is something that long far ago lost its purpose, lost its way. We want to make sure that teachers keep that hard-earned money in their pockets. One of them jokingly said I gave myself a raise by not sending my dues to the teachers union,” Nuñez said.

While DeSantis has praised Florida’s efforts to increase teacher pay, the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the United States, released a survey recently that found Florida ranked second to the bottom for teacher pay, placing better than only West Virginia.

DeSantis called the association “a very partisan teachers union” and dismissed their findings.

“They are obviously going to generate things that are going to be reflective of positive views for union-dominated states and negative for people that have actually beaten the teachers unions like we have in Florida. But everything said up here doesn’t lie. These are massive increases in teachers’ salaries.”