Tennessee Senators passed Governor Bill Lee’s legislation to raise teacher salaries on a partisan 25 to 6 vote Thursday.
The plan would raise teacher salaries to at least $42,000 next school year, $44,500 for the 2024/2025 school year, $47,000 for the 2025/2026 school year, and $50 thousand for the 2026/2027 school year.
“It’s such an important profession, and quite frankly I don’t think that we have fairly compensated our teachers over the years, and we are taking bold steps to rectify that,” said Franklin Senator Jack Johnson. “It’s going to make us far more competitive as a state to not only be able to recruit teachers but to retain teachers and make sure that they know that Tennessee is dedicated to education.”
The legislation also provides teachers with new paycheck protection by prohibiting school districts from deducting dues from teacher paychecks for organizations and unions, including the Tennessee Education Association (TEA).
An estimated 46,000 public school teachers currently have their TEA union dues automatically deducted.
Some members of the Senate, including all Democrats, have opposed that section of the bill but they lacked the votes to remove it.
“No other profession is having their ability to have payroll deductions for their union memberships stripped. Why we pick on our teachers in this regard is unbelievable to me,” said Memphis Senator Raumesh Akbari.
Supporters of the paycheck protection provision argue local school districts shouldn’t be engaged in the process of collecting union dues.
Clarksville Senator Bill Powers was among them, and he pointed out the unreimbursed value those collections have for the TEA.
“If we were a credit card company, we’d make close to seven, eight hundred thousand dollars a year off collecting two and a half, three percent. We’d be collecting a lot of money,” said Senator Powers.
The legislation has a vote in the House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee next week.
