Rep. Carter Nordman Photo courtesy of ballotpedia.org

A bill that went through the Iowa House Appropriations Committee deals with public school teacher pay.

Following the governor’s original proposal to increase starting teacher pay to $50,000 and making those teachers that had at least 12 years of experience be paid $62,500. District 47 Representative Carter Nordman (R-Panora) says the House took a different approach. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that he ran the bill through the House Appropriations Committee to raise starting teacher salaries to $50,000 in two years, provide $22 million to help with school district teacher salary schedules and $14 million for support staff that include associates and paraeducators. He comments on what the House settled on from the governor’s proposal.

“I think what, the starting point in the House, I think we have a good bill. With negotiations with the Senate and the governor there might be some tweaks. We want to make sure that rural schools are receiving the best bang for their buck too. We don’t want all this money to just go to our urban areas, but like I said, this is about raising teacher pay for teachers across the state. They deserve it, our teachers deserve, and our support staff deserve it.”

Nordman adds the House’s bill didn’t include the governor’s proposal of $62,500 for teachers that have at least 12 years of experience because they wanted to give school districts more flexibility in terms of how to determine their salary schedules. The legislation is now in the Senate for consideration.