Teachers in Arizona are paid substantially less than teachers in other states. This, sadly, is common knowledge. But word in a new study that Tucson-area teachers are paid $9,000 less, using median pay, than their peers up the road in Phoenix is a sorry surprise.
The information is part of a study from Tucson Values Teachers, a local nonprofit dedicated to improving circumstances for teachers, and was sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Education and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council.
In numbers, the median wage for teachers nationally in 2013 was $56,310. The median in Phoenix was $47,230 and in Tucson it was $38,240.
Adjusted for cost of living, Tucson is still rock bottom. For comparison, the adjusted median teacher pay in El Paso was $56,876 a year.
The challenge of increasing Arizona teacher pay to the national average is herculean. But Tucson is faced with a question whose answer directly involves many Tucsonans.
How do school districts in Phoenix, which receive state funding based on the same formula as those in Tucson, pay their teachers substantially more?
One answer: Budget overrides.
Technically speaking, a budget override allows school districts to ask voters within their boundaries to increase their property taxes to raise a specific amount of money for specific purposes. Districts use them to pay for things like teacher pay, arts and music courses, all-day kindergarten, smaller classes, or to backfill state budget cuts.
Maintenance and operations overrides can be spent on people, unlike bond funding. Capital overrides pay for equipment, like technology upgrades. Overrides can last only seven years, then voters decide if they approve a renewal.
But at its most basic, a budget override is a school district directly asking its residents to spend more on public education. Success or failure is a measure of how much trust a community has in its district to spend money well. For example, Sunnyside Unified voters had a long tradition of supporting budget overrides, until recent years when turmoil with the then-superintendent and school board resulted in voters saying no.
Among the 16 school districts in the greater Phoenix metro area with more than 10,000 students, all but one — Glendale Elementary — had a budget override as of 2014, the most recent year tracked by the Arizona School Boards Association. Among the big four in the Tucson metro area — Marana, Vail, Amphitheater and Tucson Unified — only TUSD did not have an override.
Among the metro area’s smaller districts, Flowing Wells, Tanque Verde and Catalina Foothills all had budget overrides. Only Sunnyside did not.
TUSD stands out because it encompasses so much of the metro area and has the most students: 48,000. TUSD also has more than 2,400 teachers, the most of any district in Arizona.
TUSD has asked for overrides at least twice since 2004 and been rejected. The most recent, in 2009, was a crushing defeat, with 59 percent of voters saying no to a request for $18 million that was to pay for all-day kindergarten and increase per-student funding. If passed, the owner of an average home in TUSD would have paid $6 more a month in property taxes.
More than a decade without a budget override is difficult. Last year TUSD teachers received a flat raise of $500, while administrators received 2.5 percent increases, the school boards association salary survey shows. If a beginning TUSD teacher making $34,000 had received a 2.5 percent raise, it would have been $850.
The discrepancy between Phoenix and Tucson teacher salaries is alarming, and raises serious questions about individual district’s priorities. The question isn’t only why would a teacher stay in Arizona, but why would a teacher remain in Tucson and, especially, TUSD?
The good news, if there is any, is that voters have a way to directly financially support their local school district by approving a budget override. Voters in three local districts — Sunnyside, Flowing Wells and Sahuarita — will vote Nov. 3 on school overrides.
Among the bad news, and there is plenty, is that voters, including those without children in school, must believe override money will be spent wisely. So far, voters in TUSD have not had that faith, and it is one reason teachers here continue to be severely underpaid.
For more data on teacher pay, go to the University of Arizona MAP dashboard of Southern Arizona.
