Sales tax revenue is still available as a fix for nationally bottom-dwelling teacher pay

Crowds gather during the Rally for Respect outside the North Carolina Legislative Building on May 16, 2018, in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

My heart sank as Mrs. Konechne expressed her disappointment with the class.

She’d assigned us to write a humorous personal essay, and she’d given us plenty of instruction. She expected better, and she was going to get it by making us all do a rewrite.

My pulse jumped at the sight of red ink all over my paper as it landed on my desk. When Mrs. Konechne whispered her request for me to stay after class, I wanted to disappear.

Then I read the handwritten notes. They were all positive — effusive, even. And there were a lot of them.

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Mrs. Konechne recognized how much thought and work I’d poured into my writing. She saw how important this assignment was to one aspiring middle-school writer, and she took the time to make sure I knew it.

When class ended, I walked up to Mrs. Konechne’s desk, embarrassed by the praise and unsure what to say. She told me I wouldn’t need to do a rewrite. I was a talented writer, she said, and I should keep at it.

That was 30 years ago. I’m still writing, and I’ve never forgotten that encouragement.

That’s the kind of difference a teacher like Patti Konechne can make. When I think of all the stories like that unfolding every day of every school year across South Dakota, I’m awestruck.

Good teachers help solve societal problems by simply doing what they do to put kids on a path to success. That’s why it’s so disappointing that South Dakota teachers make less money, on average, than teachers in every other state except West Virginia and Mississippi . Worse yet, we’ve been at or near the bottom of those rankings for decades.

Tax increase was supposed to solve the problem

Lawmakers and then-Gov. Dennis Daugaard took a step forward in 2016 when they adopted a half-percent increase in the state sales tax rate to boost teacher pay.

“The key to student achievement is an effective teacher,” Daugaard said that year . “We all know that. It’s the number one factor that we can control.”

Schools received a big but fleeting infusion of extra state funding from that tax increase, and the state climbed a few spots in teacher pay rankings. Then the rest of the state budget absorbed the extra sales tax revenue for several years, and legislators went back to granting smaller annual increases in state funding for schools. The pace of teacher pay increases has picked up again slightly in recent years as the state budget has ridden a wave of federal pandemic aid.

Data visualization made with Flourish

Meanwhile, we’ve slipped back to 49th in average teacher pay (out of 51, because of the inclusion of Washington, D.C.). When the rankings were compiled last year using data from the 2021-22 school year, South Dakota’s average teacher salary was $50,592.

I’ve heard all kinds of explanations from legislators and state officials. They talk about our comparatively low cost of living, how it’s more important to look at the staffing situation at individual schools than to compare ourselves to other states, how the low pay is the fault of school boards that haven’t funneled enough state funding to teachers, etc., etc., etc.

Maybe that’s all valid. Or maybe we don’t put enough state money into education.

South Dakota ranks 48th in the percent of revenue that schools receive from their state. We rank 17th and fifth , respectively, in the percent of revenue schools receive locally (from property taxes) and from federal aid. One leg doesn’t seem to be doing its part to hold up the stool.

Pending bill: Mandate with no new money

There is a bill pending during the current legislative session in Pierre that would address the teacher pay problem by requiring school districts to meet minimum teacher pay standards. The bill’s language is in flux due to a proposed amendment, but it does not appear to include any new money for schools, other than routine yearly increases in state funding; in fact, it proposes the opposite — reductions in state funding for school districts that don’t meet the standards.

You don’t need help from a math teacher to figure out that’s probably not going to work. And it makes me wonder why lawmakers don’t simply use the revenue from the 2016 sales tax increase the way it was supposed to be used.

The key to student achievement is an effective teacher. We all know that. It’s the number one factor that we can control.

– South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard in his 2016 State of the State address

There is one problem with that line of thinking. Legislators and Gov. Kristi Noem reduced the state sales tax rate from 4.5% to 4.2% last year. That saved an estimated and impressive-sounding $104 million for taxpayers collectively, but a barely noticeable 30 cents on every $100 purchase individually. They did that without any meaningful acknowledgement that when they’d increased the rate from 4% to 4.5% just seven years earlier , the extra revenue was intended to make a lasting impact on teacher pay.

This year, legislators could devote the two-tenths of a percentage point remaining from the 2016 tax increase toward teacher pay. Or they could bump the rate back to 4.5% and give the revenue from the extra three-tenths of a percent to teachers. Or they could give the entire half-percent to teachers. Then they could continue in future years with whatever option they choose — while imposing some minimum pay requirements — until average teacher pay goes up significantly.

In the interim, there would be plenty of time to discuss and formulate a way to sustain higher pay and regular raises over the long-term, either through a continued reliance on the sales tax or some other means.

The alternative is another year in the basement of national teacher-pay rankings, and more problems recruiting and retaining good teachers. If that happens, legislators will deserve to go home with critical red notes all over an education funding policy that badly needs a rewrite.

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