Who Got Raises?

Just a few months ago, the hot topic was preserving the building fund for the school building program or giving raises for teachers and other school employees and eliminating the building program by using the building fund money for those raises. That debate was settled with a majority of the school board and a majority of the county commission voting to use the building fund money for raises. So now that the dust has settled and the paperwork is all done, who got raises and how much did they get?

Teachers received one step raise and a half percent raise. The average teacher pay raise was $670.00 per year. Average teacher pay, $41,883.00.

The average pay change for paraprofessionals, teacher assistants, was approximately a $9 per year reduction in pay. This is due to the fact that they received a half percent pay raise but this year's school year was one day shorter. The half percent pay raise was less than the loss of the one day of pay. Some paraprofessionals were recipients of two step raises determined by years of service. Those paraprofessionals average raises were $2,464.00 per year.

School and system secretaries received a half percent raise. Average pay raises, $6 per year.

School nurses received half percent raise and were in the same situation as the paraprofessionals actually losing about $12 on their annual pay.

The director of schools had presented a new pay scale for principals. One third of that new pay scale was adopted giving principals an average pay raise of $3,400.00 per year. Average principal pay, $64,024.00.

Assistant principals average increase came to about $6,100.00. Assistant principals received one step raise and a half percent raise and had 20 days added to their contracts. Pryor to this year assistant principals worked under a 200 day contract, same as teachers. The director of schools recommended that the assistant principals should have an additional month added to their contract. Average assistant principal pay, $55,392.00

There were a few other hefty odds and ends raises scattered throughout the system but the above account for the bulk of the raises. All figures quoted above are before taxes.

As you can see from the figures above, most school employees received modest and some times no pay increases but it still took the building fund money for the building program for those raises. Sadly, funding for raises and the building program could have been  accommodated with savings within the current school board's budget by cutting waste. Unfortunately that wasn't wishes of a majority of the school board.       

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9/27/10