Utah Taxpayer Association reports nearly $40k average pay gap between teachers and administrators

SALT LAKE CITY — The latest annual report for Utah Schools by the Utah Taxpayer Association shows a pay gap between Utah teachers and school administrators to the tune of almost $40,000 a year.

While not an entirely new problem, Utah Taxpayer Association President Billy Hesterman said the gap is what stood out to the association in this year’s Utah School Spending Report.

The association found the average public or charter school teacher is taking home a little more than $75,000 a year, while the average administrator is making around $115,000 a year — 61% more than what teachers make.

“What stood out to us definitely is how much more the administrators are making over the teachers. But also, it’s expected, right?” Hesterman said. “There is some element of someone as they climb the ladder is going to make more money. It just seemed like a figure, maybe a little bit higher than what we would think taxpayers would expect.”

Hesterman said he doesn’t think any school district is misusing taxpayer money and the pay gap only increased by 1% since last year.

While the association wants teachers to feel appreciated and paid at a level where they feel they’re doing a good job, administrators do fit into a different category, Hesterman said. At the end of the day, he said it’s the students who truly matter.

“We know (administrators are) leading a large organization and so we have to take that into account,” Hesterman said. “But again, this is still taxpayer dollars. This is still money that’s being spent on making sure that the schools run. And the focus needs to be on ‘How are we getting good student outcomes,’ not, ‘How are we paying people more money?'”

At the same time, teachers have seen more of a pay raise compared to past years after the Utah Legislature passed HB215 in 2023, which gave licensed educators a $6,000 pay raise.

“I can remember a little more than a decade ago when you were looking at teachers getting 35 to $40,000 a year as a starting salary,” Hesterman said. “We’re now more into that $65,000, so we’ve definitely seen an increase in teacher pay.”

Hesterman added that it’s normal for administrators to make a little more, but he feels the gap may be bigger than the average person would think it is.

“We do want to make sure taxpayers are aware that salaries have crept up in the government sector,” Hesterman said. “Maybe a little bit higher than I think people expected.”

Hesterman said he just hopes this leads school boards to evaluate their pay gaps, and make sure as many of their tax dollars as possible are going towards helping students succeed.

“Our hope is that we’ll see a re-focus by the school boards across the state to look at this and say, ‘You know, maybe that percentage is a little too high. And ‘We do want to figure out what are the best ways to help our students succeed,'” Hesterman said. “Then, ‘How to pay our administrators more.'”