Controversial Teacher Pay Bill Lives On In The House

The House is moving forward with a controversial bill, similar to the teacher pay one killed in the Senate last week. (Photo Credit: Rachel Morello/StateImpact Indiana)

The House revived a plan that would allow school districts to award pay raises to certain teachers without going through the collective bargaining process. The legislation aims to give superintendents the power to increase salaries for teachers in math, science, special education or in urban and rural schools – all which are hard to attract good teachers.

The Senate killed a bill last week that would have done the same thing.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long said the Senate would not move forward with HB 1004 because it was being portrayed as “anti-teacher.” He said he wanted the legislature to come back to the issue next year after studying it further.

But during a House education committee Monday, committee members passed SB 10, which has similar language to HB 1004. After seeing HB 1004 would not leave the Senate, House Republicans got it on today’s committee calendar, the last day a committee could consider it.

The debate around this bill is the same as HB 1004. Those in favor say if school districts can offer higher salaries for teachers in hard to fill (hire?) subjects.

But by not including these raises as part of the collective bargaining process, teachers’ unions say this type of legislation will create an unfair pay system. They say, if a school can give one teacher a raise without going through the traditional negotiation process, it could lead to nepotism and pit teachers against one another.

It’s unclear yet whether the House will succeed in passing this bill, but because the committee has not made any changes to the bill it doesn’t have to return to the Senate for approval.