Minns government finds $1.4b in savings for teacher pay rises

NSW Education Minister Prue Car has found $1.4 billion in savings to pay for the wage rises of the state’s teachers, as she focuses on returning highly skilled executive educators to the classroom.

Car was tasked with finding the savings to help fund a key election promise to boost the pay of 95,000 teachers, the majority of which will receive historic increases of up to $10,000 from next term.

Education Minister Prue Car says she is confident that she has found significant savings to pay for wage rises.Credit: Adam Yip

The government has accounted for a 4.5 per cent pay rise for teachers – which is in line with a broader public sector wage deal – in Tuesday’s budget. However, $1.4 billion in savings still needed to be found for wage increases in the following three years.

The Teachers Federation has negotiated an initial one-year pay deal which will see the starting salary for first-year teachers rise from $75,791 to $85,000 and top-of-the-scale teachers will receive an increase from $113,042 to $122,100.

The cost of that deal has not been disclosed but Car said it would be revealed in Tuesday’s budget.

Car said under the previous Coalition government, more than 3000 teachers had been removed from classrooms to take up executive positions in schools. She said there would be an immediate freeze on the appointment of further executive teachers.

“The most significant change that will result in significant savings is that we will be winding back what has become a proliferation of executive positions in schools where teachers don’t teach, they do not have any teaching load,” Car said.

“It is just unbelievable that at a time of shortage in classroom teachers and in a system that was designed to make principals overburdened with paperwork, we would be taking our very best teachers and putting them basically behind desks.”

Car said redirecting a proportion of discretionary funds available to principals to remove teachers from classroom duties to do administrative work would save $414 million over four years.

She said poor pay for teachers over many years meant they were “disincentivised from staying in the classroom” while under the previous government’s policy of Local Schools, Local Decisions, principals were swamped with administrative work that they could not manage on their own, forcing them to rely on senior teachers.

School teachers walked off the job last year to call for better pay.Credit: Getty

The controversial reform transferred the bulk of the state’s multibillion-dollar school budget from the Department of Education and gave it to principals to enable greater autonomy but, instead, it was linked to ad-hoc decisions.

Car said significant savings would also come from a range of programs across the education department, including on consultants and labour hire.

“We are really confident we will get there [to the $1.4 billion] pretty comfortably,” Car said.

Car said the government would also reduce programs that do not directly support schools, such as recruiting international teachers and communications contractors.

More than 200 contractors and management consultants will no longer be required, saving $411 million over four years, Car said.

Efficiency dividends will also be applied across each corporate division of the education department, saving $328 million over four years. Removing duplication from programs in digital learning, communications and management systems will save $250 million over that period.

Car said the one-year wages policy, which applies to all public sector workers, will be funded through a range of “central savings” found by Treasurer Daniel Mookhey.

Mookhey has already outlined a range of savings, such as overhauling the scandal-ridden Transport Asset Holding Entity and cutting back on a range of voucher programs for families.

The government will negotiate a new four-year award for teachers with the federation for 2023-27.

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