In 80% of Kentucky school districts, average classroom teacher salaries declined in the current school year compared to last year once inflation is taken into account, according to a KyPolicy analysis of new data from the Kentucky Department of Education. Average salaries statewide rose an inflation-adjusted $327 this year, which amounts to only a 0.6% increase.
Kentucky teachers now earn $9,736 less per year in the 2023-2024 school year than they did 16 years ago, in inflation-adjusted terms. That’s a 14.2% decline, which has affected teachers in every school district in Kentucky and contributed to a growing teacher shortage in the commonwealth — straining public school systems and making it more difficult for students to succeed in the classroom.
Real teacher salaries in Kentucky are much lower than 16 years ago
The long-term erosion in state funding for local schools — despite a constitutional mandate that makes public education a state responsibility — is the major cause of declining real teacher pay. State SEEK base funding (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, the state’s core school funding formula) is a little over $2.04 billion for 2023 and 2024, slightly less than the $2.06 billion it was in 2022. Years of stagnant funding means that base SEEK will be an inflation-adjusted 34% less in 2024 than it was in 2008.
Yet the problem of public employee compensation has been on the radar of the Kentucky General Assembly for the past several years. Recognizing years without state employee raises, lawmakers appropriated funds for an 8% raise for state workers in fiscal year 2023, another 6% raise in 2024, and they are likely to further improve state worker compensation in 2025. But when it came to schools, the legislature left it up to local districts to stretch existing state and local dollars to cover teacher and school employee raises. The last time Kentucky teachers received a state-mandated dedicated raise above 2% was in 2008.
Looking at the district level, teachers have seen a pay cut on average in every district between the 2008 and 2024 school years once inflation is taken into account, ranging from -33.4% in Russellville Independent to -0.6% in Fayette County.
Because inflation has been historically high and state funding increases so modest, only 34 out of Kentucky’s 171 school district saw inflation-adjusted average salaries grow for teachers between the 2023 and 2024 school years. Even before adjusting for inflation, average teacher pay declined outright in 27 districts this year. Meanwhile, just six districts raised pay an average of over 6% before considering inflation.
The problem may even be worse than the data suggest. Analysis from 2022 shows 21% fewer new teachers (those with nine of fewer years of experience) than in 2008, and 51% more teachers with 10 to 34 years of experience. Because teachers with more years of experience are paid higher salaries, the shift since 2008 toward a larger share of higher-paid teachers may have pulled the average wage up, obscuring the real extent of the fall in pay.
Falling compensation makes recruitment and retention very difficult in a labor market where private sector wages have far outpaced public sector wages. As a recent legislative report outlined, more teachers are leaving the profession and fewer are entering it. Pay, lack of respect and burnout are major contributors, according to that analysis.
The General Assembly’s long-term underfunding of education is to blame, more income tax cuts will make problem worse
Eroding state funding for public education is the cause of teacher salaries failing to keep up. That problem will become much worse if the General Assembly continues to cut the individual income tax. The income tax is Kentucky’s largest source of revenue, funding 39% of the state budget. Each half-point reduction in the income tax costs the state budget over $600 million annually. However, between an annual surplus in excess of $1 billion, and nearly $4 billion in the state’s Budget Reserve Trust Fund, there is more than enough to provide dedicated funding for substantial teacher raises in the next budget and address this growing problem from the past two decades.
