Texas Senate unanimously passes SB 26 to increase pay for some teachers

The Texas Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would increase pay for some classroom teachers along with a number of other provisions. 

The upper chamber approved Senate Bill (SB) 26, which includes a tiered raise based on district size and teacher years of service. The $4.3 billion bill would also expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) performance pay program while removing guarantees of future pay raises. The bill does not include raises for other educators, including counselors, school nurses, librarians, classroom aides, and other support staff. 

As sent to the House, the SB 26 pay raise would: 

• Create a Teacher Retention Allotment (TRA) that provides money to districts for teacher pay increases for the next two years based on the size of the district’s student population and the experience of the teacher. Districts with 5,000 students or fewer would receive TRA funds to provide an additional $5,000 for teachers with three to five years of experience and $10,000 for those with five or more years of experience. Districts with 5,000-plus students would receive $2,500 for teachers with three to five years of experience and $5,500 for those with more than five years. 
• Repeal the automatic pay raise language placed into law as part of 2019’s House Bill (HB) 3, which requires that 30% of any overall increase in school funding be spend on increasing teacher compensation any time the Legislature increases the Basic Allotment. 
• Introduce a new bottom rung of TIA designations, “acknowledged,” associated with a $3,000 stipend, and increase existing stipends. 

As passed out of committee, SB 26 would have removed National Board Certification as a TIA qualifier entirely. The bill’s author, Senate Education K-16 Committee Chairman Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe), submitted a handful of floor amendments, including one that would allow National Board Certified-educators to retain their designation under the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) until the shorter of the expiration of their certification or three years. SB 26 removes National Board Certification as a qualifying criteria for TIA designations moving forward. 

Another amendment by Creighton requires a district to first be approved as a TIA district before it can qualify to become an “enhanced” TIA district and draw an additional 10% funding weight under SB 26. 

Sen. Jose Menendez (D–San Antonio) successfully submitted an amendment to include special education, bilingual education, and fine arts teachers in TIA programs. 

ATPE submitted proposed amendment language to Creighton: 

• The first was intended to address educators’ concerns over the permanence of the pay raise attached to the creation of the TRA. As SB 26 is currently drafted, the Legislature can stop future funding for the TRA without repealing any statutory language by simply failing to fund the provision. It is very common for the Legislature to simply stop funding a program without repealing it. The amendment would have required TRA raises to continue regardless of future appropriations unless the Legislature affirmatively passed a new bill to repeal the raise.  
• The other amendment would have redirected funding in the bill aimed at creating a new state bureaucracy for the purpose of providing undefined educator liability protection from a single vendor selected by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). ATPE’s amendment would have simply provided educators with that funding directly for the purpose of voluntarily acquiring liability insurance. Although ATPE is one of dozens, or more, providers of educator professional liability insurance—some nonprofit like ATPE and others for profit—the submitted amendment was not specific to ATPE and would have directed this liability insurance funding to flow directly to teachers to purchase any qualified liability insurance policy from any provider at the educator’s discretion.  

Chairman Creighton declined to entertain either of ATPE’s proposed amendment to his bill. SB 26 now heads to the Texas House. ATPE thanks the nearly 2,000 educators who used ATPE’s Advocacy Central to contact their senators with feedback on SB 26.