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Arizona teachers are on track to get an extra 1 percent in their paychecks next year, but there’s a difference of opinions about whether it’s a permanent raise or a temporary bonus.

Gov. Doug Ducey proposed a 2 percent raise spread out over five years for teachers. The Legislature’s budget, which lawmakers continued to debate into the night Thursday, proposed a 2 percent increase over two years.

The increase is included in the budget in such a way that it doesn’t go into the base revenue the state allocates to districts each year, “thus making it temporary and not permanent,” said Arizona School Boards Association spokeswoman Heidi Vega.

But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, said it is a raise.

“It’s not a bonus,” she said. “It’s a teacher raise. It’s ongoing.” 

Ducey spokesman Daniel Scarpinato echoed that.

“This is a permanent, lasting teacher pay raise,” he said. “The funds are ongoing.”

The budget bill proposes to allocate $34 million for a “teacher salary increase” next year. It requires each school district or charter school to raise the salary of any teacher who taught at an Arizona public school this school year and who teaches at a public school next year by 1 percent next year. 

It must come on top of any other salary increase that the school provides.

The money is not part of the automatic funding that schools get per student. The budget requires the state Department of Education to give the money separately to each school district or charter school. 

The school governing board then must have a vote “regarding the allocation of moneys that it receives from this line item.” 

Lesko said it was set up this way, as a separate line item from the rest of school funding, to ensure it funds teacher raises.

Scarpinato said putting the money into the baseline would provide “zero accountability that the money ever gets to the teachers.” 

“You could kiss the raises goodbye,” he said. 

But Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, called it shocking and insulting.

“You cannot guarantee that this will come in the future. This is a bonus that we’re giving the teachers,” he said. “We’re patting ourselves on the back that this is an education budget. We didn’t give teachers pay raises at all.”

The budget includes a clause stating that the “Legislature and governor … intend to include funding for an additional one percent teacher salary increase in fiscal year 2018-2019.” 

But because of its setup, Ducey and the Legislature will have to approve that second 1 percent increase again next year and every year they want that 2 percent to continue.

Arizona Association of School Business Officials lobbyist Chuck Essigs said based on that, administrators will advise teachers that the raise isn’t a permanent guarantee. 

“What happens in a year or two if the Legislature decides we aren’t going to fund this?” he asked. “I’ve been around a long time, and I don’t ever remember permanent changes in law being done this way.”

Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this article.

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