AUSTIN — The Texas Senate has officially given its blessing to a proposal to give $5,000 raises to every teacher in the state.

Next stop for the bill is the Texas House, where several members have expressed a preference for merit-based raises or giving local districts the freedom to make their own salary decisions.

On Monday afternoon, all 31 senators voted to advance the legislation, which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called his top school finance priority of the session. By the time the bill made its way to the floor for a vote, every member of the Senate had signed on as a co-sponsor.

The bill, authored by Flower Mound Republican Sen. Jane Nelson, would require public school districts to give every full-time classroom teacher $5,000 more than what they're making this year, including those who work for charter schools. About 352,000 educators would be eligible for the raise at a cost of about $1.9 billion a year beginning in 2020, the Legislative Budget Board estimates.

The average base teacher salary in Texas is about $53,000.

"This is a great statement about where we place our priorities," Nelson said. "We place it in our teachers."

Teachers and other school employees have expressed concerns about the bill in recent weeks because it excludes other support staff including bus drivers, counselors, nurses, teachers' aides, and custodians. On Monday, Nelson said there just wasn't enough to include everyone.

"We simply can't afford to add all of our school employees to this pay raise," she said.

But she amended the bill to add school librarians, who must have classroom experience, a move she said will add a $53 million cost.

"Librarians are teachers," she said.

While the bill garnered unanimous Senate support, it was clear members had lingering concerns. Senate Democrats expressed concern about leaving support staff -- especially counselors -- out of the pay raise. Meanwhile, some Senate Republicans said they'd prefer to see merit-pay increases for teachers.

"How are we going to incentivize in this the school districts to step up and recognize the importance of the teacher so the state doesn't have to end up taking over the pay of teachers?" asked Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood. "I look forward to the bills that have incentives in there because that's how we'll get outcomes up."

Nelson said her bill is simply one piece of the school funding overhaul effort, and other bills could be filed relative to merit pay or raises for support staff in schools.

The Senate has earmarked about $6 billion over the biennium in new money for public schools in its budget. Teacher pay raises, under Nelson's bill, would use about $3.8 billion of that.