Gov. Brian Kemp is asking lawmakers to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending on Georgia’s public schools.
After years of increases in tax revenues, the state treasury is bulging, and Kemp wants to steer some of the surplus toward education. A big chunk of it, $745 million, would amend the current year’s budget by increasing the amount distributed to school districts per the Quality Basic Education funding formula. That would grow to an extra $1.1 billion next fiscal year.
The formula-driven increases are prompted by rising healthcare contributions and enrollment growth, Kemp’s office said. His proposal to raise teacher pay again would also increase what the formula says the state should give schools.
In 2018, Kemp made a campaign pledge to raise teachers’ pay by $5,000, a promise fulfilled already. He announced in his inaugural address last week that he’ll be building on that with another $2,000 raise proposal for teachers. It would cost $303 million, according to the governor’s office.
Among the other significant school items in Kemp’s budget:
- $115 million in the current fiscal year to give every K-12 school a $50,000 safety grant.
- $26.9 million to help school counselors address student emotional and mental health.
- $25 million to help schools contend with pandemic learning loss.
- $15 million to help paraprofessionals pay for the cost of becoming full-fledged, certified teachers.
Kemp also wants to send more money to college students, proposing $61.2 million to fully fund the HOPE scholarship grants.
School superintendents are concerned about a teacher shortage as the baby boomer generation retires and younger people eschew the teaching field.
Rob Brown, the superintendent of Lumpkin County Schools in the Dahlonega area, said he and other superintendents expect it to become their biggest challenge over the next five to seven years.
That’s why he is excited about Kemp’s grant to help paraprofessionals — basically classroom aides — become teachers.
“I think that will help a lot of our parapros. They’re incredibly valuable employees but they’re grossly underpaid, in every district,” Brown said Friday. “I can’t imagine working on that wage and trying to go back to get certified as a classroom teacher. And many of them want to do that.”
Lumpkin just approved a $2-an-hour cost-of-living increase for its paraprofessionals. With that pay boost, those who already have a bachelor’s degree earn $15.50 an hour, or $23,560 a year.
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