After several lean years of cutting expenses, the Fayette County Board of Education is discussing mid-year teacher pay raises and the possibility of adding more items to a budget that is already the first one to see an increase in five years.
Most of the discussion centered on teacher pay and recruiting the best possible teachers for the district when Superintendent Joseph C. Barrow Jr. presented the plan Monday.
But he told board members the draft proposal is designed only to start a conversation about adding to the nearly $171 million budget that was approved in June. That budget already allowed a 1.5 percent pay increase for teachers and other salaried employees and gave a one-step salary schedule increase to non-teaching staff members with five years of service.
“We’ve been hammering on this for the last couple of months because our commitment is to be good stewards” of tax money while working toward having the best school system possible, Barrow said when he introduced the plan.
“We want to take revenue and hit the highest impact strategies we can,” he added.
Barrow gave the board options for adding to the existing budget in January or waiting until the next budget begins in July. Under his plan, which is only a preliminary proposal, the board would need to add nearly $2 million to the budget if the plan begins in January. It will cost nearly $3 million for a full year.
“We added back the furlough days (forced days off with no pay to cut expenses), then we did the one and a half percent (pay raises) and now we are at the point we think we can do a little more,” Barrow said of salaries.
In a ranking of teacher pay for similar size districts, Fayette County ranks in the middle, Barrow added. Forsyth and Columbia rank near the top and “that’s where we want to go.” The proposed pay increase would bump the county’s ranking by about two spots, he said.
Board member Dan Colwell echoed the findings of many recent national education studies and said the most important factor for success in the classroom is a quality teacher. “That takes a good salary schedule,” he added.
“We have this money and I think the community wants us to spend it on teachers,” Board member Leonard Presberg said in reference to a school system reserve account that will fund additions to the budget without causing deficit spending.
“We’re coming pretty close to having 15 percent (of operating revenue) in the reserve fund, which is the maximum we’re allowed to have” Presberg added. “We have this money. I think we need to spend that on education resources. That’s what I hear from the community.”
If the board approves the proposal to begin in January, it would need to withdraw about $1.5 million from reserves to create a balanced budget, according to officials.
“I don’t think we will ever be able to go back to where we were (in staffing), Barrow told the board. “This is the new normal. To be a world-class school system and to be the best we can be, we will need to add back a few folks, but we want to do it strategically. Other districts in our region are beginning to have a hard time finding qualified people. We’ve got to position ourselves to be more competitive.”
In other action, the board looked at proposed changes to the regulations surrounding the school system reserve fund. The requirements call for the school system to create a restoration plan any time the fund dips below the targeted 10 percent.
The changes are available for public inspection for 30 days before the board makes a vote.
The documents can be viewed online by going to the school system website at http://www.fcboe.org/. Once there, chose the eboard site from the menu on the right side of the page. Then use the drop down menu under “meetings” to access the latest board meeting agenda where the documents can be found.
