SECOND REGULAR SESSION
SENATE BILL NO. 748
90TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY SENATOR JOHNSON.
Pre-filed December 29, 1999, and 1,000 copies ordered printed.
TERRY L. SPIELER, Secretary.
3171S.01I
AN ACT
To repeal section 163.172, RSMo Supp. 1999, relating to minimum teacher's salary supplements, and to enact in lieu thereof one new section relating to the same subject.
Section A. Section 163.172, RSMo Supp. 1999, is repealed and one new section enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 163.172, to read as follows:
163.172. 1. [In school year 1994-95 and thereafter, the minimum teacher's salary shall be eighteen thousand dollars. Beginning in the school year 1996-97, for any full-time teacher with a master's degree and at least ten years teaching experience in a public school or combination of public schools, the minimum salary shall be twenty-four thousand dollars.
2. Beginning with the budget requests for fiscal year 1991, the commissioner of education shall present to the appropriate committees of the general assembly information on the average Missouri teacher's salary, regional average salary data, and national average salary data.] Beginning in school year 2000-2001, the minimum salary for a full-time teacher shall be at least twenty-two thousand dollars, the minimum salary for the full-time teacher with at least five years of previous experience shall be at least twenty-five thousand dollars, the minimum salary for a full-time teacher with at least nineteen years of previous experience or a full-time teacher with at least a master's degree or its equivalent and at least ten years previous experience shall be at least twenty-eight thousand dollars, the minimum salary for a full-time teacher with at least a master's degree or its equivalent and at least nineteen years of previous experience shall be at least thirty-four thousand dollars, and the minimum salary for a full-time teacher with at least a master's degree or its equivalent and at least twenty-nine years of previous experience shall be at least forty thousand dollars.
2. As used in this section, the following terms mean:
(1) "Full-time", shall be defined as a teacher working under school district contract for all school days and hours eligible for attendance of students;
(2) "Master's degree or its equivalent", shall be at a minimum a bachelor's degree plus at least thirty-two additional hours of course work which results in at least one additional certification;
(3) "Regular school term", has a minimum of one hundred seventy-four days and one thousand forty-four hours of pupil attendance possible for students;
(4) "Salary", shall include the salary and minimum salary supplements amounts which appear on the teacher's contract for the regular school term and does not include supplements for extra duties, summer school, career ladder, or extensions of the contract year;
(5) "Teacher", shall include teachers, guidance counselors and school librarians who are certificated and assigned to schools.
3. All school district employee salary and personnel policy information shall be public information.
4. [As used in this section, the term "salary" shall be defined as the salary figure which appears on the teacher's contract and as determined by the local school district's basic salary schedule and does not include supplements for extra duties.
5.] The minimum salary for any fully certificated teacher employed on a less than full-time basis by a school district, state school for the severely handicapped, the Missouri School for the Deaf, or the Missouri School for the Blind shall be prorated to reflect the amounts provided in subsections 1 [and 2], 5 and 8 of this section.
[6.] 5. Beginning with the [1996-97] 2000-2001 school year, the general assembly shall make an annual appropriation to the excellence in education fund established in section 160.268, RSMo, for the purpose of [fulfilling the minimum salary requirements for public school teachers] paying public school teacher minimum salary supplements in those districts meeting the qualifications established in subsection [7] 6 of this section. [The appropriation shall be sufficient to ensure that all qualifying districts are able to comply with the minimum salary requirements of this section. The department of elementary and secondary education shall determine, prior to each school year, those districts which shall be eligible to receive funds in this subsection during the school year. A qualifying district shall be eligible to receive funds appropriated in this subsection only during the first three years following the district's qualifying for such funds.] If the appropriation of the general assembly is insufficient to pay the total cost of all salary supplements the minimum salary amounts of subsections 1 and 8 of this section shall be prorated until the amount appropriated is paid to school districts.
[7. To qualify to begin receiving funds in subsection 6 of this section, a school district shall meet all of the following criteria:
(1) A portion of the real property of the district shall have been removed from the tax rolls due to the impact of state or federal government action;
(2) The district shall have received no more state aid on a per pupil basis for each of the last three school years, exclusive of categorical funding, than the district received for the 1992-93 school year;
(3) The salaries paid to all teachers in the district for the school year prior to qualification shall be totally compacted at the eighteen thousand dollar per year minimum established in this section;
(4) The district shall have in its employ for the school year prior to qualification one or more teachers with a master's degree and at least ten years' teaching experience in a public school or a combination of public schools;
(5) The district shall be financially distressed or have a history of deficit spending which, if continued, will cause the district to become financially distressed within three years;
(6) The district had an enrollment of no greater than four hundred pupils for the preceding school year; and
(7) The district shall have levied an operating levy for school purposes of not less than two dollars seventy-five cents per one hundred dollars of assessed valuation for the previous year and shall continue to levy at no less than that rate.
8. For any school year in which a school district receives funds pursuant to subsections 6 and 7 of this section, such school district shall continue to expend on teacher salaries no less than the amount it expended on teacher salaries in the school year immediately prior to the school year in which it first receives such funds.
9. No school district receiving funds pursuant to subsections 6 and 7 of this section shall receive additional funds pursuant to subsection 6 of this section by virtue of the annexation of another school district to such school district during or after the school year immediately prior to the school year in which the annexing district first receives such funds; nor shall any school district annexed to a school district receiving funds pursuant to subsections 6 and 7 of this section also receive funds pursuant to subsection 6 of this section by virtue of such annexation if such annexation occurred during or after the school year immediately prior to the school year in which the annexing school district first receives such funds.]
6. To qualify to begin receiving funds in subsection 5 of this section, a school district shall meet all of the following criteria:
(1) Levy a tax rate in the current year in incidental and teachers funds totaling no less than two dollars and seventy-five cents per one hundred dollars assessed valuation after all reductions and rollbacks;
(2) Make no increase in any voluntary tax rate rollback for operations compared to the previous year or the 1999 property tax year;
(3) Make no illegal transfer of revenue or balance from either incidental or teachers funds to either debt service or capital projects funds;
(4) Employ all teachers in accordance with district policy with at least one teacher paid according to the district's salary schedule at less than the minimum salary as specified in subsections 1, 5 and 8 of this section;
(5) Beginning with school year 2000-2001, the salary of any teacher who is a new employee to a school district shall be determined by placement of the district's salary schedule using previous years of school experience which are no less than was used the previous year by the district for such placement;
(6) Beginning with school year 2000-2001, the salary paid any returning teacher for the regular school term in a school district which is not financially stressed shall not be less than the salary paid that teacher during the previous school term on a full-time employee equivalent basis.
7. Reductions or penalties to state aid payments to school districts paying minimum salary supplements to teachers shall occur under the following conditions:
(1) Annually the amount by which total supplemental assignment and extra duty salaries, not including career ladder supplements, paid teachers by a district exceed eight and one-half percent of total salaries for the regular school term plus minimum salary supplements shall be subtracted from state payments made the following year pursuant to subsection 5 of this section;
(2) The amount of end-of-year fund balance in incidental and teachers funds combined in excess of the greater of fifteen percent of expenditures in these funds or the 1999-2000 end-of-year fund balance in these funds shall be subtracted the following year from state payments paid pursuant to subsection 5 of this section and if necessary from state aid paid pursuant to section 163.031.
8. Future increases in minimum salaries for teachers shall be contingent upon decreases in total state payments to all districts made pursuant to subsection 5 of this section. The second fiscal year following a fiscal year in which state cost of funding the minimum salary program is eighty percent or less of school year 2000-2001 cost of the state funding of minimum salaries for teachers, the value of each level of minimum salary provided in subsection 1 of this section shall be increased by one thousand dollars.
9. Expenditures related to state minimum salary revenue received by a district shall not be used to determine compliance with any other provisions of law including compliance with section 165.016, RSMo.
10. The budget request presented annually by the commissioner of education shall present to appropriate committees of the general assembly information of the average Missouri teacher's salary, regional average salary data and national average salary data, and a history of cost to the state for the minimum salary for teachers program.
11. The state board of education shall issue rules and regulations as necessary for the efficient and effective implementation of this section. All such rules shall be promulgated pursuant to chapter 536, RSMo.
12. State minimum salary supplements paid pursuant to this section shall be funded from any increases in state revenues from taxation of riverboat gaming operations, including boarding fees, compared to the amount of these revenues appointed in fiscal year 2000.