South Dakota continues to fall short of the statutory target teacher salary established in the big Daugaard reform of 2016. According to the Department of Education’s Report on School Finance Accountability presented at the SFA Board’s November 10 meeting (see Appendix D), the average statewide teacher salary for the 2019–2020 fiscal/school year was $49,008. The Governor’s budget set last year’s target teacher salary at $50,360.26. Our statewide average salary thus fell short $1,352, 2.685%.
Out of 149 school districts in South Dakota, sixteen managed to meet or beat the FY2020 target salary:
| School District | FY20 Avg Teacher Salary | FTE |
| Brandon Valley |
$53,576 |
250.37 |
| Dakota Valley |
$51,105 |
87.26 |
| Douglas |
$56,666 |
184.00 |
| Dupree |
$53,201 |
32.74 |
| Eagle Butte |
$54,758 |
44.21 |
| Huron |
$50,370 |
169.23 |
| McIntosh |
$50,548 |
19.36 |
| McLaughlin |
$50,366 |
37.49 |
| Milbank |
$50,526 |
67.68 |
| Mitchell |
$52,321 |
176.96 |
| Oglala Lakota County |
$59,383 |
84.73 |
| Rapid City |
$51,219 |
838.88 |
| Sioux Falls |
$52,824 |
1572.74 |
| Wagner |
$51,937 |
67.75 |
| Watertown |
$52,234 |
239.99 |
| Yankton |
$52,392 |
165.02 |
These sixteen school districts employed 41.85% of the teaching FTEs reported statewide in FY2020; as a group, their average teaching salary last year was $52,572, 4.392% better than the state’s target teacher salary.
At the other end, fifteen schools failed to clear $41K for their average teacher pay:
|
School District |
FY20 Avg Teacher Salary |
FTE |
| Big Stone City |
$41,296 |
10.77 |
| Bowdle |
$40,260 |
16.00 |
| Colman-Egan |
$41,356 |
19.25 |
| Colome |
$41,774 |
21.07 |
| Elk Mountain |
$40,978 |
3.20 |
| Flandreau |
$41,582 |
60.44 |
| Gettysburg |
$41,761 |
22.11 |
| Hoven |
$41,088 |
18.55 |
| Newell |
$41,681 |
26.59 |
| Oldham-Ramona |
$40,577 |
18.43 |
| Rutland |
$37,808 |
21.19 |
| Scotland |
$41,575 |
23.10 |
| Summit |
$40,418 |
15.25 |
| Wilmot |
$41,777 |
18.07 |
| Woonsocket |
$40,901 |
21.00 |
Those fifteen schools at the bottom of the pay scale employed 3.265% of South Dakota’s teaching FTEs in FY2020; as a group, they offered an average salary of $41,086, falling short of the state’s target by 18.4%, $9,274.
Whether you’re teaching in Rutland, Wilmot, Sioux Falls, or Oglala Lakota County, you’re still not making as much as you would teaching in many other states. In its July 2020 report on state educational rankings in 2019 and estimates for 2020, the National Education Association projected that the national average teacher salary would rise from $62,304 in FY2019 to $62,645 in FY2020. South Dakota’s average teacher salary was 77% of that projected national average. We beat NEA’s estimates for only two other states, Florida and Mississippi.
The NEA projected that South Dakota’s FY2020 teacher salary would reach $49,220, so NEA overshot our actual average teacher salary by 0.431%. If we scale down their projections for our neighboring states by that same factor, we can compare South Dakota’s reported average teacher salary in FY2020 with the going rate for the same work across our borders:
| State | FY2020 Salary (SD reported by DOE; others NEA est) | Cost of Living Index (US = 100; retrieved from SD GOED 2020.12.30) | COLI-adjusted teacher salary |
| Iowa |
$58,663 |
90.9 |
$53,325 |
| Minnesota |
$58,410 |
94.1 |
$54,964 |
| Montana |
$51,910 |
94.7 |
$49,159 |
| Nebraska |
$55,029 |
91.1 |
$50,131 |
| North Dakota |
$52,103 |
90.8 |
$47,309 |
| South Dakota |
$49,008 |
90.7 |
$44,450 |
| Wyoming |
$58,760 |
95.3 |
$55,998 |
Even when we adjust for cost of living based on the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s own numbers, we find South Dakota’s teacher pay remains at the bottom of the regional pile. Teachers, move one state in any direction from South Dakota, and you increase your earning/purchasing power by at least 6.43% (North Dakota), or maybe more than 20% (23.65% in Minnesota; 25.98% in Wyoming).
Our current target teacher salary is $51,367; Governor Kristi Noem’s proposed 2.4% increase to K-12 funding in FY2022 will bring that target to $52,600.29. Notice that even if all of our schools hit that target, South Dakota would still only roughly tie Montana and North Dakota and still lag behind Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wyoming in putting a fair value on teachers’ work.
South Dakota teacher salaries: #48 in the nation.
South Dakota median household income: #25 or #26.
South Dakota used to be a poor place. It isn’t anymore. Maybe time to compensate teachers accordingly, like many of the neighboring states do.
It is what it is. Better than working at Amazon, apparently.
How many people have 4 year degrees plus extra education?
Grdz insults 5000 SD teachers. What a guy.
Howabout women?
Ms. Magazine Retweeted
Dec 22
Another common recipient of Trump’s ire: Democratic women in political leadership—like Michigan
@GovWhitmer
, Sec of State
@JocelynBenson
and AG
@dananessel
. With Michigan “in the fight of its life,” these women found no support from the president.
And nurses?
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/nurse-drops-hammer-on-trump-administration-for-treating-healthcare-workers-as-if-they-are-expendable/
Joe, where are you getting your stats that SD is #25 or #26 on median household income? That is hard to believe. Trust me, SD is still is still a very poor place to live if one does not have an education. In MN, there are still Union manufacturing jobs that will pay a decent wage and lift you out of poverty. Hopefully MN will never vote to be a Right To Work (for poverty wages) State.
Geez Grdz:
I like the way you would trust the daily health and welfare as well as the future of your children/grandchildren to multiple Amazon workers. Oh yes, I forgot the future of our nation and the world. But then, who cares right?
Go back to bed and dream of Thump!
Isn’t Grudz a retired, pensioned government employee? Oh, the irony.
Hi Jenny: I re-checked and as of 2018 South Dakota was ranked #33 (it has ranked higher in the past). Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income
Joe points out the most important element that gets overlooked – if not surpassed – in discussions on taxation/funding/compensation and it is worth repeating over and over: SD is NOT a poor state.
Continuing our underfunding of important investments based on this inaccurate assumption of poverty needs to end.
Can you explain the “COLI-adjusted teacher salary” column in the last table you provide? If the Cost of Living Index is 100 nationwide, then index numbers below 100 indicate a lower cost of living, correct? So a salary in a state with a lower cost of living should be comparatively better than the same salary in a state with a higher cost of living. It appears you simply multiplied by each cost of living index as if it were a percent, giving SD 90.7% of their salary in purchasing power and WY 95.3% of their salary in purchasing power. This seems backwards to me. The lower cost of living index in SD should not decrease the purchasing power of a salary MORE than the higher cost of living index in WY. The first two columns of this table provide valuable data, but the third column seems to misinterpret the COLI.
South Dakota Public Districts: Baseline Average Teacher Salary by Year
https://doe.sd.gov/data/Teacher-Salary.aspx (accessed June 16, 2021)
School year Nominal Salary by Year Salary by year in 2021 Dollars
2012-2013 29,881 34,320
2013-2014 30,514 34,540
2014-2015 31,425 35,004
2015-2016 32,546 36,210
2016-2017 37,520 41,223
2017-2018 38,187 41,082
2018-2019 38,838 40,787
2019-2020 39,584 40,822
Inflation Adjustment Calculator, Minneapolis Federal Reserve bank, minneapolisfed.org (bottom of homepage), June 16, 2021