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JEFFERSON CITY — Two former educators-turned-lawmakers at a House committee hearing Wednesday presented their plans for increasing Missouri teacher pay.

Both plans accommodate Gov. Mike Parson’s request for an extra $4 million of state funds to help school districts cover the cost of teacher raises.

But they diverge in key ways: One is narrowly focused on upping the dollar amount of teacher minimum pay that is set out in state law. The other lifts minimum pay and takes additional action to bolster teacher income across the state.

The simpler pay increase plan, sponsored by Rep. Willard Haley, R-Boonville, would change state law, raising the minimum teacher salary from $25,000 to $38,000. It would also raise the minimum salary of teachers with a master’s degree and 10 years teaching experience from $38,000 to $44,000. The changes would start in the 2025-2026 school year.

Haley’s proposal would set up the state-funded “Teacher Baseline Salary Grant Program.” School districts could apply to the program for up to “70% of of the amount necessary” to increase teacher minimum salaries in compliance with state law.

Some lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing expressed concern about increasing teacher pay at a time when the state looks to tighten its budget as pandemic-era federal aid dries up.

“We must fulfill this funding even at cost to some other things,” Haley said. “Education is that important to me and is that important to our communities and all our youth.”

Haley said the increased minimum pay requirements could present a financial burden to smaller schools, but, “I just insist that it’s time to pay teachers what they deserve,” he said.

The second proposal, sponsored by Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, includes the same increases for the 2025-2026 school year and Teacher Baseline Salary Grant Program in Haley’s bill.

But Lewis’ plan would also add annual salary adjustments for inflation, permit education boards to have differentiated salary schedules to attract teachers to “hard-to-staff” subject areas and schools, and change the “Urban Flight and Rural Needs Scholarship Program” to the “Teacher Recruitment and Retention State Scholarship Program,” among other provisions.

Lewis last year put forward a teacher pay raise plan that passed the House with a 145-5 vote but died in the Senate.

He said that this year’s effort will face a similar challenge that needs to be overcome because it has the support of a governor who’s in his final year in office.

There was no public opposition to the pay increases, with various education groups registering their support before the committee, including the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Missouri State Teachers Association and Missouri National Education Association.

Steve Carroll, a lobbyist for the Missouri Retired Teacher Association, Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City and ӣ����Ƶ Public Schools, spoke in favor of both plans.

Carroll said he woke up at 3:43 a.m. thinking about “these two bills that probably won’t even make it across the finish line because of what’s going on in the Senate.”

Carroll said he had read about the multi-million dollar contract recently offered to Royals baseball player Bobby Witt Jr.

“In our society, we are so messed up in our priorities,” he said. “I think these (bills) are important if we want to get the right people in the classroom.”

This legislation is House Bill 1431 1447