The Henry County School Board unanimously approved its $109,370,899 spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year at a March 31 meeting. The school system is requesting $72,670,916 in state funding and $23,987,617 in local funding.
The plan includes up to a 5% increase for full-time teachers, full-time classified staff, drivers and aides, and administrators. Currently, the school system works on a scale that increases the full-time pay for teachers with tenure. This scale goes up to 30 years.
“It’s typical and best practice to have a scale representing the typical 30 years, which is considered a full career,” Schools Superintendent Dr. Amy Blake-Lewis said. “This allows us to maximize the funding down the scale so that we can continue to retain those teachers who are new while still recognizing the value of those who have already maxed out the scale.”
There are additional step programs for other full-time employees that increase with tenure such as School Nurses and Bus Mechanics.
Teachers are already given a raise depending on their education level, and this 5% raise is meant for Adjustments that are also being made for activity runs for bus drivers. This rate will be set at $16 per hour for special runs and $20 per hour for community stops and evening runs. to encourage drivers to pick up extra and/or late-night event runs that are outside of normal working hours.
The budget is allocated to other areas of need, such as technology, vocational education, and basic aid. School lunches were also factored into the budget, with the state picking up the cost of both breakfast and lunch programs.
Blake-Lewis explained that with a new insurance program, employees will see a 10 percent decrease in premiums. Currently, employees are covered by the insurance policy, but their dependents are not covered. The change would lower the cost of adding a dependent to an employee plan.
For example, an employee with a child on their policy currently would pay a monthly premium of $589.24. According to the update, that amount would decrease to $530.32, beginning on July 1.
“We can possibly offer a future reduction if the fund balance is still healthy,” Blake Lewis said, adding that the school division currently is a self-insured entity.
The Capital Improvement Plan totals $16,200,000. Also included in the budget is an outline of many upcoming school improvement projects, including a roof repair for Laurel Park Middle School, an HVAC replacement at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School, and switching gear replacements at both of the middle schools.
