Amid a tight budget year, members of the Hamilton County Board of Education weighed two proposals to increase salaries for all school system employees.
District officials recommended Thursday that the school board approve one of two compensation proposals at its June 20 meeting. The first would cost $32 million and is aligned with the district’s original budget proposal. It would provide all full-time employees with a 5% raise or a $2,800 flat raise, as well as boost compensation for classified employees, like electricians and educational assistants, and provide additional money to school staffing.
The other proposal would cost $18 million and provide all full-time employees with a 3% raise or a $1,750 flat raise. Both proposals fund increases and ensure all teachers make at least $50,000.
In May, Superintendent Justin Robertson asked for a $21 million increase in the district’s allocation from Hamilton County government next fiscal year, a request one county commissioner said was not feasible given the county’s lower than desired bump in revenue.
Last week, Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp proposed a one-time spend of $5 million to raise teacher pay for next school year. These funds are incorporated into the second compensation proposal.
(READ MORE: Wamp proposes $5M one-time supplement to boost starting teacher pay to $50,000)
The district is trying to pull as many one-time expenses out of this budget as possible to prepare, though it won’t reach the $5 million, Robertson said. The rest of the money will be replaced by additional state funds next year that come with Tennessee’s requirement that every district raise its starting teacher pay to $50,000 by the 2026-27 school year, he said.
“We know it’s going to be tight,” he said. “We’re confident that by that approach we will get that money.”
School board member Larry Grohn, R-East Ridge, said he didn’t believe in across-the-board pay raises and encouraged the school board to consider a different compensation proposal that prioritizes school-based employees.
“Whether it’s at 3 or at 5 this year, that gap just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said. “I’m more focused on the principals and the assistant principals and the teachers that are actually in the classroom. The librarians, the counselors, the social workers that are actually in the school interacting with kids every day. That’s where I want to see the bulk of the pay raises go.”
Other school board members, including Karitsa Jones, D-Chattanooga, and Gary Kuehn, R-Ooltewah, also expressed interest in differentiating the salary raise based on pay or position.
Robertson said certain positions work a 260-day contract, compared to the 201 days teachers work.
“I will never present a budget to you that doesn’t provide every employee with a pay raise,” he said. “I will never get in between our administrators and our teachers.”
School board member Jill Black, D-Chattanooga, said the growing gap between the district’s highest and lowest paid employees is a good reason to advocate for the flat raise.
“We have people who work for Hamilton County Schools who cannot afford to live in Hamilton County,” she said. “I think that is a travesty.”
The Hamilton County Commission is responsible for approving the school board’s budget. Jones challenged the county commissioners who previously served on the school board to think about their time serving on the school board.
“County salaries are public record,” she said. “When I look at some things that people make in the county that don’t do and endure half of the stuff that our classroom teachers and our people in the building endure, I think maybe they need to cut their salaries and provide some of their raises to the people in the buildings because public education matters.”
The board will vote on its funding request June 20 in time for the county commission to finalize the county’s budget for the next fiscal year at its June 26 meeting. The county’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.