Board of Education approves pay raises
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on September 7, 2016 1:46 PM
The Wayne County Board of Education voted Monday night to match a 1.5 percent pay raise for classified employees, retroactive to July 1.
Those benefiting from the action include bookkeepers, secretaries, data managers, transportation and bus drivers, cafeteria workers, administrators at central office and teacher assistants, said Michael Hayes, finance officer.
The state had recently approved the raise, he said, before requesting the board match the funds.
Approximately 1,200 district employees will benefit from the move, he said.
"Where are we getting this (money)?" board member Dwight Cannon asked.
"We actually budgeted it when we initially did our budget," Hayes said. "We budgeted enough to hopefully cover it so it's adequate."
Part of the raise will come from local funding sources, Dr. Michael Dunsmore, superintendent, said.
The ability to reward this group of employees is long overdue, he added.
"Our allotment increased some this year so what we wanted to do was push because as you're all aware, those folks haven't received a raise for an awful lot of years, so we are working on trying to get our job classifications up where they need to be to be paid and get that leveled out," he said. "We're working on that but we also recognize that they're very deficient and this is just a very small token, but we're trying to get back on the right track."
Cannon said when Dunsmore was hired over a year ago, he had expressed his intention to review salaries across the board.
"Is this part of that effort?" he said.
Dunsmore said efforts were being made to look at every job in the school system and align them with the state salary scale. He is also working with the county manager, he said, on a multi-year plan regarding supplements.
"So when we talk about this money, that was one of those things with my goals objective to get everybody where they need to be and then when we hire new people, we'll be able to slide them in to that salary scale and they'll know where they're at based on their years of service and their experience rather than just starting everybody at the bottom," he said.
"With the board's approval, we have a letter ready to go out (to affected staff) and (the raise will) be retroactive to July 1."
The move will cost the district an estimated $300,000, said Michael Hayes, finance officer, said afterward.
He said the raises should show up in paychecks within the next few weeks.