The Oklahoma State Department of Education has asked lawmakers for $2.9 billion next year.
That nearly $474 million dollar increase includes almost $54 million more for the state aid formula. State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the cost to educate Oklahoma kids keeps climbing, as there are more of them every year and more with additional needs.
"The needs — special education needs, for instance, English learners, poverty — those are weights that are attached to each student. So, the money has stayed basically the same, but the students have grown by about 50,000 and the weights have grown even further," Hofmeister said.
That increase would still leave public K–12 school funding more than $50 million below what it was in 2010.
The request includes additional funding for rising benefit costs, restored textbook funding, and money to bring agency staffing back to 2016 levels. The big ask, of course, is money to give all 49,142 certified teachers a $5,000 raise.
"There’s all kinds of new opportunities. We can have higher standards, higher expectations. If you don’t have the teachers to teach them, what good is it? Got to address that first," Hofmeister said.
That raise would cost nearly $290 million, money lawmakers haven’t found for more than a year.
Hofmeister said teachers know they’ll make more in a neighboring state, leading to the average teacher staying in an Oklahoma classroom just six years.
"I believe if we did have a $5,000 pay raise, you would see a stabilizing effect for three years with veteran teachers because you know that with those robust benefits, that is an average of the last three years of their service," Hofmeister said.
The most popular state teachers pension option is based on the average of their three highest-paid years.
The State Department of Education was one of the first agencies to have a 2019 budget hearing with the Senate Appropriations Committee.
