By Erik Harris
JEFFERSON COUNTY — Three months after JefCoEd approved a plan offered by superintendent Craig Pouncey to cut over 200 jobs in order to save $12.6 million annually, Pouncey plans to ask the board to approve almost $5 million raises for select employees.
Some of the raises represent as much as a 25 percent increase in salaries. After Pouncey’s reduction in force plan was adopted, the board appointed a task force that proposed an alternative solution far different from Pouncey’s March reductions, which came as a way to help the county out of a “dire financial hardship”.
The task force plan would reduce costs through natural attrition of retirement and employees leaving on their own. After hearing from the task force, the board rescinded Pouncey’s reduction in force plan.
The list of employees that Pouncey would like to offer raises to include some of the highest ranking central office employees, some principals, coaches and other staff members. No teachers were included in the proposed raises.
Pouncey is reportedly promoting these raises to keep employees from leaving for higher-paying positions in different school systems.
Many of the office aids who were on the verge of losing their jobs in March, may be seeing a $5,000 raise in the future. Essentially, those positions went from being too expensive for the county to support, to qualified for a pay variance in a matter of weeks.
Overall, Pouncey has propose a $4.7 million salary increase after pushing for major cutbacks just three months ago.
Board President Dean Taylor who formed the task force at the request of Pouncey and several others to look into the original approval to cut jobs. That group found a way to cut $10 million out of the budget to avoid firing 162 employees, rescinding the reduction in force plan.
The proposed raises would mean the school system would be back to almost $7 million over the figure Pouncey said the budget needed to hit.
“Part of the plan was to make up some of this money through attrition, so we didn’t hire as many people this year as we normally would’ve, but we didn’t have to send anybody a pink slip,” said Taylor.
Taylor is concerned that many of the proposed raises are found at the administrative level. Principals along with central office workers are expected to be the recipients of the most substantial economic bumps. Central office workers are in line for the largest per-person raises, averaging an increase of over $15,000 per person.
“All the stuff we do at central office and our administrators at the top level do a lot, however what really matters is what happens in that classroom,” said Taylor.
According to Taylor, the funding for the central office raises will come from student materials such as textbooks and computers. This doesn’t sit well with some.
“I can’t wrap my head around how we’re going to take funding out of student materials, out of textbooks and technology, and put it in central office payroll,” said Taylor. “There is a huge technology need out there. Some of those computers are a lot older than (they need to be).”
“I don’t know if you’ve visited any of our schools, but I haven’t found one yet that couldn’t use a little more technology,” said Taylor. “How can we give a permanent raise on a one-time funding?”