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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Board of Education got an earful Thursday from educators over a proposal to increase teacher licensure fees, some by double.
State officials say the schedule would reinstate 2014 fees, but educators say it will hamper teacher recruitment and retention.
Educators, most of them representatives of teacher associations, also took issue with the timing of a public hearing on the proposed fee changes, which was originally scheduled after school hours on Thursday but was changed to 1 p.m.
Mark Ensign, a chemistry teacher at Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy, said he took time away from his students to address the State School Board.
"It seemed a bit sketchy and honestly, personally, borderline unethical to schedule it when it was," Ensign said. "It felt almost like you didn’t want us here. That was almost the feeling that was conveyed. I do hope I'm mistaken, but this is how it appears to me and my fellow teachers."
Others took issue with the proposed increases themselves, which the State School Board will vote on Friday.
Under the proposed schedule, renewing a teacher license would increase from $25 to $50. The cost of a new teacher license would go from $40 to $60.
John Fahey, superintendent of the Wayne School District, which serves about 469 students, said the district has some of the lowest paid teachers in the state and already struggles to compete for educators.
Toward that end, "we help teachers with licensing fees," Fahey said. "It has a real negative effect when we have a hard time getting teachers already."
State official say under the proposal the fees would return to 2014 levels, which were lowered when the Utah Legislature determined revenue from fees exceeded spending. Since then, the Utah State Board of Education was instructed to use the fund balance.
"It’s not that it’s an undue burden. It’s that the teachers were given a break for three years because they had paid too much money into the system," said licensing coordinator Travis Rawlings.
But because of increases in costs and new requirements that teachers undergo rolling background checks, the former fees need to be reinstated or the fund will run into a deficit by the end of the 2018 fiscal year, said Natalie Grange, assistant superintendent of financial operations.
Sara Jones, Utah Education Association's government relations director, said that a time when Utah is having great difficulty retaining teachers, higher license fees "will put more pressure on the system."
The proposed fee schedule reflects a number of fees that will be passed on to educators, she said.
"That really starts to add up, It can easily be over $100, which is not a huge amount of money, but it is not an insignificant amount of money given teacher pay," Jones said.
Some board members question if other revenue could be used to address the needs rather than relying on educators to pay fees.
Board member Kathleen Riebe, who is a school teacher, said many educators have struggled after salaries "took a hit" during the economic downturn.
To pay fees that could go up 50 to 100 percent when the highest pay raise a teacher might experience is 4 percent, "that's kind of an undue burden on teachers who really aren't getting raises. It seems inequitable," she said.
