COLUMBIA, S.C. — Teachers in South Carolina may be getting a pay increase in the next school year if approved by state lawmakers.
There's some optimism coming from Patrick Kelly with the Palmetto State Teachers Association as the house's ways and means committee approved a measure that would increase the minimum teacher salary to $47,000, a $4500 increase from the current minimum.
"That's a $4500 dollar increase over what it is this year, it's a $20,000 increase over where we were just ten years ago as a state," he says, "This year South Carolina schools started the year with 1600 vacant teaching positions statewide. That is a record number, it's an increase over last year, and the year, for five consecutive years that number has gone up."
It was adopted by the Ways and Means committee, meaning it will likely be discussed on the floor of the House in two weeks. If passed there, it'll head to the Senate.
Kelly says then it would get final approval in June budget discussions and be applied to the 2024-2025 school year.
District 5 representative Neal Collins, a member of the Ways and Means committee says the House is dedicating a third of its surplus money for this increase.
"The total is about $230 million to increase teacher pay, we only had about $600 million recurring dollar," says Collins.
This bill would not increase every teacher's salary by $4,500, but the proposal does expand veteran teacher pay bumps.
"Currently the state salary schedule awards a step, a pay increase for every year of experience through 23 years. The Ways and Means budget would extend that through 28 years of experience, effectively making teachers eligible for a step increase to the point where the earliest they could become eligible for retirement is 28 years, so they're going to have an opportunity for that pay raise throughout their career," he says.
Ten years ago, the state minimum was $29,523 and has risen by an average of about $1400 each year.
Last year, the National Education Association ranked South Carolina's starting pay as 40th in the nation, with the national average at almost $43,000 in 2023.
Governor McMaster has said that he hopes for South Carolina's minimum pay for teachers to reach $50,000 by the end of 2026.
Collins says this move lines up with that goal to make the state competitive when retaining top talent.
"Governor McMaster has his goal of increasing starting pay to $50,000 before he leaves, this takes a huge chunk towards that," he says.
Once again, this won't be official until the final state budget is approved in June, this is an ongoing story and we will provide updates when they're available.