Faced with a bare bones budget for the coming year which has already led to the sacrificing of four jobs in the school system, the DeKalb County Board of Education, has decided to ask the county commission to fund teacher raises this year from the local option tax receipts.
“We want it to be a raise, rather than a bonus,” declared board member Danny Parkerson in putting the question to a vote at the school board meeting Thursday evening. Board members voted unanimously to request the county to take teacher raises out of local option tax rather than the school’s reserves.
The school system wants to give all school employees a $600 raise this year, in part to counteract increased insurance premiums. In the case of teachers, the $600 would be joined by a $600 raise from the state, making their raise $1,200. The $600 figure was negotiated down after the county commission advised it could not afford to give teachers the $2,400 raise the school system first requested.
At issue is what form the $600 will take. If the school system is forced to take it out of it’s reserves it would have to be done as a one-time bonus since the school fund cannot be sure it can fund the increase every year. The $600 from the state is permanent.
“If you take something out of the pantry, you have to put something back into the pantry,” said School Board Chairman Dub Evins, pointing out there is no assurance the school reserves could continue paying the raise each year.
The total for raises would cost the county $300,000 each year. In preparation for the hit, the school system has deleted four positions to help fund it, two from the high school, one from Northside and one from Smithville Elementary.
“We cannot sustain the raise from our reserves,” declared Director of Schools Patrick Cripps.
Given their dire financial straits, board members hope the county commission will allow them to use local option sales tax money to fund the raises so they can be reoccurring. However, Evins admitted he did not know how much was in the local option sales tax money, meaning commissioners could opt to reject the plan when they meet to do the budget next week. If the proposal is rejected the school board will likely meet in special session and adopt the $600 as a one-time bonus coming out of their reserves.