Michigan is spending $150M on one-time ‘educator’ bonuses. Here’s how it works
Daily routine, menus, lesson plans and family reminders are displayed outside a classroom in Waterford. In Michigan schools, regardless of if you teach at the front of the class, you may receive a one-time bonus from a $150 million state program. Meanwhile, leaders say the state can do more to raise teacher pay long-term. Photo credit: Emily Elconin for Bridge Michigan.
As Michigan ranks near the bottom on starting teacher pay, the state is once again providing money schools can use for teacher bonuses.
The $150 million bonus pool included in the new $22.9 billion education budget could provide teachers and other school employees with a temporary boost in pay, but school leaders and lawmakers are searching for more permanent solutions.
Here’s where things stand.
How much are teachers paid in Michigan?
The average teacher salary is $71,023 and ranks 22nd nationally, according to the National Education Association.
But starting teacher pay, $43,093, ranks 45th in the nation.
State Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, who helped lead the education budget negotiations, said he would like to see starting wages between $50,000 – $60,000 a year “because that’s the type of compensation that people need in order to want to become teachers in the first place.”
Jason Burns, a research specialist at the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, who studies teacher compensation, estimates it would take about $350 to $400 million to raise teacher pay in line with public opinion.
Public opinion polling shows people think teachers should start at $54,600 and average pay should be $71,445.
“There’s strong support for teacher salary raises across the board but very strong support for increasing teacher starting salaries,” said Burns.
Tim Rittinger, an Ann Arbor teacher, said that while teachers have historically made lower wages than others with bachelor’s degrees, “it used to be that it was worth it because you had a pension or you had really great benefits. And even those things are just getting eaten away.”
How much money can this bonus pool provide teachers and others?
The state projects 1.36 million public school students in the upcoming school year. That means districts would receive about $110 per student for this program, according to analysis from the Michigan Education Association.
How much each staffer gets depends on how many students are enrolled in a district, how many qualify for bonuses and how a district negotiates with its local union if there is one.
Camilleri said the program has been a “wild success.” He heard reports that bonuses were ranging from $750 to $1,000 a person last year. This year, he estimates bonuses will be between $500 and $1,000.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District could receive $698 per staff member while the Lansing district could receive $497 per staff member, according to the MEA analysis.
Last year, Northville Public Schools received about $1 million from the program, said Superintendent RJ Webber. In total, 665 employees received $1,150 stipends, with the remaining funds used for FICA and retirement costs.
Meanwhile, at Ingham Intermediate School District, Superintendent Jason Mellema said the district’s actual population of students that count toward per-pupil membership is low so the district got less than $50,000 from the program. He said staff members received $92 each pre-tax, with the superintendent and cabinet team not taking payments.
So, this isn’t new?
No. The $150 million in funds, which are designated are “1-time bonus payments,” are on top of the roughly $350 million the state put toward offsetting health care costs and increasing educator compensation last year. The state also budgeted $67.8 million the year before to increase educator compensation.
Who qualifies for this money?
Several kinds of school workers qualify for the Educator Compensation Program, not just teachers. The state’s definition of “educator” can include anyone from speech therapists and counselors to nurses, food service workers, custodians and bus drivers.
Can it really make a difference?
The program is “welcome by educators to have a little bit of extra money in their pocket,” said Burns, the research specialist.
“But I don’t know that it necessarily changes the calculus about people, their willingness to enter the profession or to remain in the profession because that’s not a long-term financial commitment.”
Michigan leaders have tried several other efforts to increase recruitment and retention of teachers. There are scholarships for future teachers, grow-your-own programs so that staff can attend college tuition-free and career courses for high schoolers interested in becoming teachers.
Why is the state funding bonuses? Aren’t districts responsible for teacher salaries?
Yes. School districts’ biggest expense is the wages and benefits they provide to staff. When the state raises schools per-pupil allowance, districts can use the funds to raise employee pay.
School districts will receive $10,300 per pupil this upcoming school year, up 2.5% from the $10,050 last school year.
“The goal is to ensure that educators have more money in their pockets,” said Camilleri, who acknowledged the funds cannot fix everything but could offset grocery bills, medical costs or other items.
Camilleri said it’s “critical” the state continues to raise per-pupil funding and funding for at-risk students.
Putting more money in these funds allows schools to “build solid contracts to grow salaries for teachers and educators,” said Peter Spadafore, executive director of the Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity.
“Lawmakers need to have a serious conversation about revenue because we are at a point where we’re pitting essential service against essential service for a shrinking pie.”
Meanwhile, House Republican Rep. Tim Kelly of Saginaw, who also helped lead education budget talks, told Bridge he understands the concern about starting teacher pay but is skeptical about generally giving schools more money.
“I don’t think we need to be as generous to the adults running the system until they start showing results for what we’ve given them.”
Michigan continues to lag the nation in several metrics: fourth grade reading ranks 44th and has one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the country.
Kelly said much of the COVID relief funds already went to teachers and administrators. During the pandemic, Michigan school districts received about $5.6 billion in federal funding. Roughly half of the funds were budgeted for salary and benefits, according to the state’s COVID-19 data dashboard. Some districts provided bonuses for staff or offered tutoring programs where staff could be paid additional money for extra work.
What else have the state and federal governments done to help teachers?
The state created a program in 2023 to help teachers pay back their federal student loans, but it has ended after just a couple years,
It took the state a year to even begin distributing funds, and in the fall 2025 budget deal, the state converted funds for the student loan program to be used for the new educator compensation effort.
Leaders had originally allocated $225 million toward the student loan program but the Michigan Department of Education ultimately only distributed $22.3 million, according to a December 2025 memo.
Jordan Weinstein, a Detroit teacher who participated in the loan effort, said the program showed the Legislature recognized the “sacrifices that we make to be teachers” and that teachers should be paid to get training instead of “going into extremely burdensome debt.”
She is disappointed the program has ended.
“It felt like a way to sort of quietly wind it down, because if you call it a bonus, it’s like ‘oh it’s a bonus you don’t expect it every year’ whereas the student loan program was like ‘for as long as it’s funded you’re going to be reimbursed for your student loan payment.’ So, it feels like a step backwards.”
Can the state do more than fund bonuses?
Bonuses are appreciated, said Webber, the Northville superintendent, but there are ways to provide more “meaningful” ways to support public education.
“Shut down the raid on the School Aid fund,” he said.
The new budget includes a record $1.7 billion of School Aid money to be spent on higher education instead of exclusively on K-12 efforts. Webber warned “it’s only going to get worse if colleges and universities continue their decline in enrollment.”
Camilleri is advocating for the state to set a minimum teacher salary while respecting local bargaining rights and wants to see the state adopt measures that protect teachers against rising health care costs.
He also wants to lower health care costs for public employees. Democrats had sought to require public school districts to pay for at least 80% of employee health care costs, but that bill did not become law.
The bill was one of nine that Democrats approved in 2024 but were stalled during a protracted fight between the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House. After a recent court ruling forced the House to transmit the bills to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor vetoed them, in part to avoid “endless litigation”
Currently, districts can spend up to 80% but the actual contributions vary.
Senate Democrats re-introduced the health care legislation in late July.
This article first appeared on Bridge Michigan and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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