The Iowa Legislature is continuing to work on two big topics that were proposed by Governor Kim Reynolds at the start of the session.

Governor Reynolds wants to make some changes to Area Education Agencies (AEAs) along with increasing teacher salaries up to $50,000 for new teachers and $62,000 for teachers that have at least 12 years of experience. District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) says there are three versions of the AEA bill between the governor and the House and Senate. Green points out that while work continues with the AEA changes, he believes teacher salaries are connected to the AEAs.

“I don’t think we can talk about AEA reform without also talking about teacher’s salaries within the public schools. I’ve heard a lot of issues of where teachers would rather work for the AEA because it pays better and it’s less stress. Well we need to address that and I think we need to address that regardless if we have AEA reform or not.”

Greene County Schools Superintendent Brett Abbotts says the governor originally proposed $96 million of new money for the entire state to help with increasing teacher salaries. He believes the funding to raise those designated salaries to what the governor has proposed would go through the Teacher Salary Supplement (TSS). 

“I have done some working around what this would look like and how much it would actually mean for Greene County (Schools), like how much we would actually need to get those staff who kind of qualify for that. We’d need just a shade over $220,000 to be able to make this happen. That would impact, currently 53 of our 107 teachers.”  

Green is happy with how serious both chambers of congress are taking these conversations and considerations after receiving opinions and data from experts and others during the legislative process.