Some Muscogee County School District employees will soon get raises. Here’s who.
The Muscogee County School District is raising salaries for all positions that don’t require teaching or other professional certification.
Monday, the MCSD board unanimously approved the salary increases for classified personnel. Superintendent David Lewis made the recommendation “in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing shift in labor market,” according to the agenda.
The raises will start in January.
All full-time and part-time employee groups in the following positions will receive 3.5% salary increases, including applicable employer retirement and FICA contributions:
- Paraprofessionals
- Clerks
- Transportation support
- Plant services
- Bus monitors
- Custodians
- School nutrition
- Crossing guards
- Clinic workers
- LPN school nurses
- District-funded Columbus Museum staff
- All other classified auxiliary positions.
The salary schedule for all MCSD bus drivers will be raised based on an entry-level rate increasing from $14.95 to $17.25 per hour.
The daily substitute teacher compensation also will be raised, from $65 to $90 for subs without a college degree, from $75 to $100 for subs with a bachelor’s degree, from $80 to $125 for subs with an expired teaching certificate, and from $100 to $125 for subs with an active teaching certificate.
The projected annual cost for the package of salary increases is $2.5 million ($1.3 million for the remainder of this school year).
MCSD plans to pay for the salary increases this fiscal year with money from its federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) allotment and in subsequent years with revenue from the district’s general fund.
Lewis told the board the salary increases were formulated after looking at comparable school districts locally and statewide.
“We feel like these employees are definitely deserving,” he said.
Salary raises for certified personnel will be considered in the spring, Lewis said.
Board chairwoman and District 1 representative Pat Hugley Green said she hopes the increased pay for substitute teachers will attract more of them to the “challenge schools,” where students are from predominantly low-income families.
District 4 representative Naomi Buckner said some teachers have told her the lack of substitutes causes them to use their planning period to cover for absent teachers and students are divided into other classrooms because a substitute isn’t available.
District 7 representative Cathy Williams wondered aloud whether MCSD could incentivize subs to work at “challenge schools” by giving them more pay than when they work at other schools. Lewis agreed it’s a valid consideration, but he said the administration must determine whether it could be sustainable.
Kia Chambers, the board’s countywide representative, voiced an alternative opinion. She said she would rather look at improving the programs and the support at “the schools that you all have coined as challenge schools. . . . I think if we focus on the root of the problem and fix that, you won’t have subs saying, ‘I won’t go here, here or here.’”
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 7:49 PM.
