Not Everyone Is Happy With Gov. Ron DeSantis' Bill Raising Teacher Pay

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Gov. Ron DeSantis has followed through on one of his campaign goals – raises for teachers. But not everyone is happy.

Miami-Dade school teachers visited Tallahassee during the legislative session, urging an increase in teacher pay.

The outcome was a new starting salary statewide of $47,500, but not much in the package for long time teachers.

"We signed the bill to increase Florida minimum average teachers' salary in the state of Florida to take us from the bottom 25 states into the top five," DeSantis said.

Veteran Florida teachers are not happy.

In many cases, educators with 15 to 20 years in the classroom will be making maybe a couple hundred dollars a year more than the beginning teachers.

"Do you want a brand new teacher educating them or do you want someone who has experience? If you want someone with experience, you have to take care of your experienced teachers," said teacher Jordana Hess.

"More of the problem, more of the angst with the veteran teacher is that. A lot of the new teachers will be close in salary or same as they are after they have been a teacher 15-20 years," said teacher Waldo Jude Mirambeau.

Miami-Dade school teachers are in the midst of a three-day contract ratification vote.

Teachers are voting via internet and need a PIN to access their ballot.

Some teachers are complaining that the PINs have been slow in coming and the election closes at 5 p.m. Friday.

They are voting by email due to the pandemic.

Teacher union officials urge patience and if the delivery issue is not solved they say they will extend the election deadline.

"If we hear that people within the next 24 hours still do not have access to it, then we will do what we have to do and extend the voting so everyone has access to it, absolutely," said Karla Hernandez-Mats, the president of the United Teachers of Dade.

True Ballot, the third-party contractor managing the election, has sent out 30,000 emails to Miami-Dade teachers.

The teacher's union believes such a large batch of emails has been slowed in the contractor's server.

CBS4 reached out to True Ballot about that, but have not heard back.