The Sioux Falls School Board apparently understands how to deal with a workforce shortage—raise wages!
The Sioux Falls School board has approved a $280 million dollar budget for the fiscal year 2022. The budget includes increases in spending in the general fund of $1.2 million and an additional $1.6 million for special education.
The plan increases starting salaries for district teachers 8.7% and also includes a 34.8% increase in starting salaries for speech and learning pathologists [Kristi Golden, “School Board Welcomes New members, Passes Budget with Salary Increase for Teachers,” KELO Radio, 2021.07.12].
The speech and learning pathologists at the top of the salary schedule are getting an 18.1% raise. Starting teacher salaries will rise from $37,735 to $41,000. The board is increasing the average teacher salary by 3.15%, 0.75 percentage points better than the 2.4% increase envisioned in this fiscal year’s state aid formula. Total state aid to the Sioux Falls School District will increase 2.89% over last year; the revenue the district raises from property tax will increase 3.56%. Federal funding, which makes up only 7.00% of the total district general fund, will increase 6.17%.
The district’s full-time equivalents in instruction are almost the same as last year—around 15 instructional FTE move from elementary to high school, while middle school FTE remain about the same. But a number of new teachers must be replacing some veteran teachers: the total outlays for instructional staff in the FY2022 budget actually decrease $496,000 from last year.
The district notes that over a 22-year span, the school taxes a constituent pays on a house assessed in 2000 at $98,516 have increased 41.7%, while the per capita state sales tax over a comparable time frame increased 132.0%.
Sioux Falls has always been the island of sanity within a state of mental morass.
Cities are always more liberal Porter, its the nature of things.