Trussville school board approves 2 percent raises for all system employees

By David Lazenby
Editor

TRUSSVILLE – City Schools Superintendent Pattie Neill announced during Monday’s monthly meeting of the Trussville Board of Education that school system employees are slated to receive an across-the-board 2 percent raise during the upcoming fiscal school year.

Trussville City Schools Superintendent Pattie Neill on Monday discussed the budget for the upcoming fiscal school year at a meeting of the school district’s board of education.

The raises were factored into the 2018 fiscal budget approved by the school board during Monday’s meeting. The budget was approved following a second budget hearing that is required of all school boards by the State of Alabama prior to the passing of school district budgets.

The first budget hearing was held on July 24. The school system’s fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

“We’re excited,” Neill said after the meeting. “The teachers are so grateful for this.”

School administrators discussed the possibility of a 2 percent raise at last month’s meeting of the school board.

“We have so many wonderful employees at Trussville City Schools,” Neill said. “I would love to give them more, but 2 percent is a good start.”

Because the pay raise is across the board, all school board employees will benefit from the school board’s decision.
Neill said the pay increase will help TCS attract top educational talent in the future.

“Teachers right out of college look at those (pay) scales,” she said.

According to the budgets presented at the two different meetings, anticipated total expenditures for the upcoming school year increased by $643,817 from $49.38 million in July to more than $50.03 million in the budget approved by the school board Monday.

The two budgets discussed during the July and August budget hearings also showed a change in local revenue anticipated during the fiscal school year. The budget presented in July indicated $3 million less in local revenue was expected than is anticipated by the most recent budget that received board approval during Monday’s meeting.

Next,the city school system will send its budget to the Alabama Department of Education for final approval.

School administrators are also looking at revising nine support pay categories during the school year to bring employee pay up to par with other top school systems such as Vestavia and Homewood.

“The question is why are we so far behind the other systems?”  Neill said.  “The answer is our support category tables go to 11 years.”

“This is going to be the year when we are going to do a comprehensive review and look at equity,” said Sid McNeal, president of the school board.