A legislative fiscal analyst study has found that since the 1991-92 school year, teacher salaries have increased at about twice the annual rate of state-employed accountants, social-service workers and registered nurses. However, the teachers' pay still mostly trails that of their counterparts.
A teacher just entering the profession four years ago made $17,918. By 1995, the same teacher had a salary of $23,649, an average annual increase of about 8 percent.The starting salary of an accountant hired by the state was $22,780 and increased during the same period to $23,928, or 4.2 percent annually. An accountant with five years' experience and a master's degree earns $42,073, while a teacher with the same experience and education earns $31,217.
The Report on Compensation Package for State Government was released this month to members of the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee.
The 1996 Legislature requested the study to better understand what the state was providing to employees. Lawmakers also wanted to see salary comparisons and examine the feasibility of cafeteria, or pick-and-choose, benefits, said legislative fiscal analyst Marlowe Dayley.
"Over the last few years, we have made some gains and we are happy about that," said Jim Eldredge of the Utah Education Association. "But we are concerned that there will be the misconception that the job is done. We are still not back to where we were or where we should be."
Eldredge was referring to the early 1980s, when Utah teacher salaries ranked around 26th or 27th in the nation. When the state's economy stalled later in the decade, Utah public employees, including teachers, got little or no annual pay increases. Since 1990, they have received larger hikes.
Eldredge said Utah's average teacher salary of $30,866 ranks near the bottom nationwide.
Public employees are frustrated because they get exactly the cost-of-living or merit increases set by the Legislature, said Tom Bielen, associate director of the Utah Public Employees Association.
Teacher salaries, on the other hand, are set by negotiations with individual school districts. In many cases, teachers get the cost-of-living adjustment provided by the Legislature, plus increases for additional education or training.
"We would like to somehow equalize that and get public employees an average of what teachers get," Bielen said.
Bielen said teachers may be underpaid, but so are state workers compared with their counterparts in the private sector: "There is an equally compelling argument that public employees tend to start out with lower salaries, too, and they have the same issues as teachers."