The Wake County School Board recently approved mid-year pay raises for teachers and support staff.
The school board approved several budget adjustments on Dec. 3, giving the biggest bump in pay to support staff, the News & Observer reported. Thousands of employees will receive a raise as part of the budget adjustments, and the News & Observer reported that lower-than-expected charter school enrollment was the main reason for the raises.
The changes were recommended on Dec. 3 and the board waived a policy to add it to the Dec. 3 agenda so they could get the raises to the employees faster, according to the report. School board chairman Keith Sutton told the News & Observer that he was excited to be among one of the first boards of education in North Carolina to have a $15 per hour minimum wage for some of its employees.
Workers who will receive the 3-percent raise include bus drivers, secretaries, custodians, mechanics, maintenance workers, teacher assistants and cafeteria workers. The raise will go retroactively back to July 1.
“There’s a lot of great things in this budget that deal with those employees that the state has basically ignored for the last half-dozen budget cycles,” Bill Fletcher, a school board member, told the News & Observer. “I’m very excited to see this come.”
Support staff will also receive a one-time $500 bonus that will come with their December paychecks. The raises will go into effect in the January paychecks, the news agency reported.
Teachers will get an additional one-half percent increase, according to the News & Observer. A total 1-percent increase to teachers' salary supplement is also retroactive to July 1, to be payable in January's paychecks.
Kristin Beller, the president of Wake County's North Carolina Association of Educators thanked the board for prioritizing school employees despite the limited funds available.
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