On June 24, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 641 and announced that $500 million will be dedicated to raising salaries for teachers in the state of Florida.
“This historic increase puts Florida among the best states in the nation for minimum teacher pay,” according to a news release, “a bold step in alleviating the teacher shortage and elevating the teaching profession to the level of appreciation it deserves.”
The majority of this $5oo million will work to raise the minimum base pay for full-time teachers in the classroom, and the remainder will go to raising salaries for veteran teachers, according to the Governor’s website.
“In October, Governor DeSantis promised to fight for historic teacher raises,” said Senator Rob Bradley. “Promise made, promise kept. The Governor and the Legislature delivered. This truly is the “Year of the Teacher” in Florida!”
This is how the funds will be distributed, per the Governor’s website:
- These funds must be used solely to increase teacher salaries and no collective bargaining agreement can alter this requirement.
- Step 1: Requires school districts and charters to use $400 million to increase the salaries of all full-time school instructional classroom teachers to at least $47,500 or the maximum amount achievable based on the district’s allocation.
- Step 2: Requires school districts and charters to use $100 million to provide salary increases of the group from Step 1 who did not receive an increase or received an increase of less than 2%, and other full-time instructional personnel.
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