Many schools across Indiana have finalized major teacher pay raises in recent weeks, and while some schools have struggled to strike a deal, most reached agreements with their educators before the state's deadline.
Indiana lawmakers earmarked funding specifically for teacher pay raises during the 2021 legislative session. State leaders said they expected schools to funnel those dollars to teachers after protests across the state and country – and the pandemic increased the workloads of educators everywhere.
Denny Costerison is the executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials. He said schools have had to be careful not to build temporary COVID-19 relief funding into their budgets for the long-term.
"How do we make sure that we use these dollars as they were intended to be used, and then secondly, that we don't get ourselves into some issues that would probably hit us in the future – that may be even two, three, four years down the road," he said.
READ MORE: What's it been like to be a teacher during a year of COVID-19?