Legislature 2008: Teachers (Updated)

The West Virginia Education Association hopes thousands of its members and allies will spend part of their holiday Monday rallying at the Capitol for teacher pay raises.

With the Legislature in session, the teachers' group hopes a show of numbers will propel their counter-proposal to Gov. Joe Manchin's legislative agenda.

Manchin has asked lawmakers to approve a 3 percent pay hike, $400 raises for all classroom teachers and $20 million worth of bonuses to recruit teachers to counties and subject areas suffering from shortages.

WVEA's goal is "reaching the national average in employee salaries in the next three years (approximately 8% each year) and increasing the beginning salary to $35,000."

The competing American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, which rallied with school service workers before Jan. 9's State of the State address, has a similar proposal. "AFT wants a $5,000 increase the first year and $2,500 a year for the subsequent two years," the Herald-Dispatch reported over the weekend.

The Huntington newspaper also compared West Virginia's pay rate with that of its neighbors, while noting that "clouding the straight pay comparisons is the variance in cost of living from state to state."

Update: MetroNews quotes a recent floor speech by Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, on the last impact of any raises on future state budgets: "I just hope and make these remarks so we'll be aware, conscious, of keeping this state fiscally sound and not....grant pay raises that future Legislature's will have to pay for."

2nd Update: Those who covered the rally include The Associated Press, MetroNews (which also offers a response from Team Manchin and audio from the rally), the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, The Charleston Gazette and Public Broadcasting.