Rookie Representative Travis Ismay (R-28B/Vale) has proposed nine bills so far this Session. Of the six that have had hearings (recall county commissioners, ban paid petition circulators, tinker with property tax, give soldiers free fishing licenses, take livestock disease emergency fund away from Governor, ban kratom) none have survived.
Likely headed for a similarly swift death is Rep. Ismay’s House Bill 1239, which proposes that the state take over paying all K-12 teachers and give them a huge raise.
Under HB 1239, teacher salaries and benefits would come from the state budget via the Department of Education. While HB 1239 leaves intact a statute [SDCL 13-10-2] saying that school boards fix the compensation of their employees, Section 2 of HB 1239 directs the state Board of Education Standards to establish a salary schedule and benefits package for teachers. Salaries would start at the target teacher salary and rise with demand for the subjects teachers teach, teachers’ degrees and credit hours, and teachers’ years of experience.
In return for the state assuming the largest portion (around 80%) of school districts’ budgets, HB 1239 caps the number of teachers a school district can hire at the target teacher ratio factor defined in SDCL 13-13-10.1. That ratio is actually a student–teacher ratio, ranging from 12 students per teacher in school districts with 200 kids or fewer to 15 students per teacher in districts with 600 students or more.
HB 1239 will die fast, because Rep. Ismay proposes adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the state budget without providing any way to pay for it.
Last year, the average teacher salary in South Dakota was $58,485. Multiply by 29%, the minimum amount HB 1239 figures benefits ought to cost, and you get another $16,961. Multiply a total compensation package of $75,446 by 10,049 certified instructional staff, and the total cost of paying, insuring, and pensioning every K-12 teacher in the state is $758,153,337. Last year, total state aid to K-12 education was $705,781,436, and that only covered 29% of school district budgets. Taking on the other 71% of teacher pay and benefits would add at least another $538 million to the state’s expenses.
The cost would likely be much higher than that, because Ismay’s formula appears to propose a massive pay increase for teachers. My calculation above is based on last year’s average pay. HB 1239 sets the target teacher salary, which is meant to be an average and which the actual average has always fallen short of, as the starting salary for all teachers in the state. The average starting salary for K-12 teachers in South Dakota was $47,179. The target teacher salary last year was $62,046. (The target this year and in Governor Rhoden’s flat FY2027 budget is $62,821.) Making last year’s $62,046 the new starting salary would have put the average at something like $73,000. That new average, plus 29% for benefits, times 10,049 teachers, is $946 million, 71% of which is $672 million that HB 1239 would add to the state budget.
HB 1239 would reduce that budget increase with its teacher-hiring cap. Based on last year’s teacher counts, capping teacher positions at the level dictated by the target teacher ratio factor would force 118 school districts to cut 796 teacher positions. Sioux Falls would have to eliminate 68 teachers; Harrisburg, 48; Oglala Lakota, 29. Speaking fractionally, McIntosh would have to cut over half its 21.8 teaching FTEs; Hoven, Kadoka, Lake Preston, Lead-Deadwood, and Oelrichs would have to cut over a third of their teachers. (Hoven and Lead-Deadwood don’t take any state aid now but would still be subject to HB 1239’s teacher cap). HB 1239 would allow 30 districts to increase their staffing by a total of 207 over last year’s levels. The net loss of teachers would be at least 589. The net budget impact of HB 1239 would thus be between $619 million and $632 million in increased state spending, 25% more than Governor Rhoden wants to spend in FY2027.
I’d love to see South Dakota teachers get raises of $15,000, but HB 1239 doesn’t say where we get this money. Unless Rep. Ismay answers that question, the Legislature will 41st-day HB 1239 in a heartbeat.
Rep. Ismay probably won’t propose any viable funding mechanism. He wants to eliminate property taxes, so that’s out. He could propose raising the sales tax two percentage points, which would probably cover Ismay’s bill, but Senator Jim Mehlhaff’s (R-24/Pierre) Senate Bill 99 would have done just that, and it failed in Senate Taxation this week. The Legislature clearly has no stomach for big boosts to state spending, so it will throw Rep. Ismay’s HB 1239 on the discard pile with the rest of his failed bills.
I can’t wait to see Grudz response to raising teacher salaries. He must have had a horrible kindergarten teacher back in the 40s. Ruined him for life on teachers.