LITTLE ROCK -- A bill aimed at increasing wages for school staff by $4 an hour failed to pass the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.
The committee in a voice vote tabled Senate Bill 149, with Republican members saying they would prefer to wait for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to file her long-anticipated education bill before deciding on raises.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, would "advise all public school districts" to pay classified staff at least $15 an hour. Classified staff includes custodians, bus drivers, nurses and special education paraprofessionals.
"I think they voted to table it to keep them from having to vote 'no,' which I understand and was not surprising," Leding said.
Leding's bill is aimed at increasing wages for workers, whom schools have had trouble retaining, by increasing foundation funding, the amount of state funds schools receive. The bill would increase the foundation funding from $7,413 for the 2022-2023 school year to $8,195 for the 2023-2024 school year, and then to $8,370 for the 2025-2026 school year.
However, school districts have wide discretion in how they spend state funds and would not be required to use the additional dollars to pay employees more. Instead, the Department of Education would issue a commissioners memo to school districts asking them to use the extra funding to pay their employees more, Leding said.
"There is nothing in this that requires districts to actually pay $15 an hour," said Sen....
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