Arizona's top educator wants to raise taxes. In her annual State of Education speech yesterday, Superintendent Diane Douglas once again called for a tax hike to fund pay raises for teachers.
Douglas says more than one out of every five teaching vacancies at the beginning of the school year are still unfilled and says low pay is a big factor. Douglas wants to extend and boost the current zero-point-six cent sales tax to a full penny which would raise 400-million dollars.
Douglas says 75 percent of that would go to teacher salaries which would be an 11 percent pay hike.
Her call for raising taxes is out of step with Governor Ducey who says that's not necessary.