Finance: District Personnel/Budget

The lecture discussed the pressure to provide annual salary increases as being an ever present part of the budget development process.  In our school district, our staff has not seen a salary increase for the past four years.  It builds quite a bit of stress among all employee groups.  Our district is planning on offering stipends to staff rather than a percent increase this school year.  The stipend amounts or lack thereof, will correspond with evaluation total scores.  This is new to our district.  The process in our district usually starts with the certified teacher salary percentage or stipend level.  Based upon this determination, amounts for other administrators and non-certified staff are determined. 

I spoke with our business manager to get a list of the expenses for our district.  She provided me with the information in the charts below:

Seymour School Corporation 2012 General Fund Expenses
Item	Total	% of Expense
Certified Salaries	13,724,267	57%
Non-Certified Salaries	2,970,839	12%
Benefits	5,850,077	25%
Outside Services	457,192	2%
Supplies	258,851	1%
Utilities	603,228	3%
Other	81,518	0.03%
Total	23,945,972

I spoke with our business manager to learn about our process for determining percentages of raises for our district.  She said she builds a scattergram with every employees salary.  She has a spreadsheet that calculates the impact of various proposed wage increases.  A great deal depends on the type of additional funds being proposed.  If it is a one-time expense, such as a stipend.  This can be funded through the general fund or even the rainy day fund.  If it is a percentage of increase to the salary, a district must be sure this increase can be funded from year to year.

Total Expenses	5% Raise
13,724,267
2,970,839
16,695,106	834755.3

If I understand correctly, the salary totals are calculated and then multiplied by the percentage of raise proposed, in this case, 5%.   This total would be the amount a district must be prepared to support going forward.

For our district, I would say that a 5% raise is out of the question without substantial cuts to other programs. 

In the years raises were determined to be affordable, we were looking at 1% or less in our area. 

The lecture discussed a school district’s salary schedule as a tool that can be helpful in recruiting and retaining highly qualified staff.  Our professor, Shannon Holmes stated during the webinar this week, as superintendent, he is interested in being competitive.  He does not want to be at the top paying more than all others but he doesn’t want to be at the bottom paying less than all others.  It seems to me this is a very delicate balance.