Legislative Education Study Committee endorses nine proposals

Lawmakers on the Legislative Education Study Committee on Monday endorsed nine proposals geared at raising minimum teacher and school personnel salaries; establishing a STEM innovation network; and creating a universal basic income pilot program, among other initiatives.
Committee members also voted in December to endorse two bills. One, prefiled as House Bill 63, proposes changes to the public school funding formula that determines how much money is allocated to each school. The second bill would extend the temporary local match reduction for programs such as free and reduced lunch. This would mean schools that are not able to meet their funding matching obligations would still have access to such programs while the LESC and other state organizations do more research into challenges of the current local match laws.
On Monday, lawmakers voiced their support for raising minimum annual teacher salaries to $55,000 for level one teachers, $65,000 for level two teachers and $75,000 for level three teachers. Lawmakers also support increasing minimum annual salaries for non-certified school personnel, such as cafeteria workers and custodians, to $30,000. If passed, salary increases would go into effect for the 2025-2026 school year.
LESC Director John Sena explained to committee members that both the governor’s office and the Legislative Finance Committee have recommended a 3 to 4% increase in salaries across the board, which will be calculated first.
“All school personnel will receive salary increases,” Sena said. “What usually happens is everyone will get that salary increase first, regardless of the percentage three or four, whatever you all decide. Whoever doesn’t get to those new minimums based on those percentage increases is then brought up to those new minimums because there may be someone who with three or four percent doesn’t quite get there.”
Sena said Sen. Craig Brandt (R-Rio Rancho) asked LESC analysts to look into creating a three-year Career Development Success pilot program overseen by the Public Education Department. Brandt explained that the bill would provide monetary incentives to school districts with students who earn “industry-recognized credentials” through Career Technical Education programs.
“The districts have no restrictions on how they would spend that money. It’s a bonus to the districts,” Brandt said. “ It really kind of takes what we’ve done at the Higher Ed. level and brings it to the CTE program to where we’re rewarding districts for really making sure the students get a certification where they can leave high school and go straight into work. So it’s just that entry level certification. I think it’s a good step forward to what we’ve been doing.”
The last proposed bill lawmakers discussed Monday would expand the reach of the LESC to study not only public education K-12 as it is limited to currently, but early childhood and higher education as well.
LESC Vice Chairman Sen. Bill Soules (D-Las Cruces) said the limited jurisdiction of the committee “makes it really difficult when we get to session because all those bills are going to come through our committee, yet we haven’t had the summer and the interim to study some of the key issues and the processes and things.” Soules added that aside from the LFC, there isn’t a committee for the Higher Education and the Early Childhood Education & Care departments to report to outside of the session, particularly on items not related to the budget.
A similar bill has been introduced during several legislative sessions over the past decade, but all died or were vetoed by the governor at the time.
