Muscogee County School Board debates whether to expand bonuses to more employees
More employees of the Muscogee County School District will receive a $2,000 bonus if the MCSD board approves the superintendent’s recommendation.
During its April 20 meeting, the board is scheduled to vote on the request from superintendent David Lewis to use $3,730,930 from MCSD’s general fund balance to pay a retention supplement to additional employees not covered in the state’s allocation of $5,942,499.
As part of Georgia House Bill 973, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed March 3, the state is providing local school districts money to pay one-time salary supplements of $2,000 to eligible K-12 teachers and support staff.
Lewis, however, wants the board to approve expanding the eligibility to include more MCSD employees.
“The State’s allocation does not cover all the employees we rely on daily, making Board approval necessary to ensure equitable stipends for the entire workforce,” the background and rationale says for this item on the MCSD board’s agenda. “This action upholds our commitment to Creating We while meeting the intent of the State’s retention initiative.”
If the board approves, nearly all MCSD employees who were actively working April 6 would on April 30 receive a $2,000 retention supplement ($1,000 for part-timers), subject to taxes. The listed exceptions are:
- Board members
- Community coaches
- Employees on leave without pay (employees must have been paid for at least five days since Jan. 1, 2026)
- Certain part-time employees not regularly working
- Outsourced workers
- Employees of the Columbus Public Libraries, which MCSD owns and operates.
Concern about MCSD general fund balance
If the board’s April 13 work session is any indication, approving this recommendation might not be unanimous.
District 5 representative Laurie McRae, the board’s vice chairwoman, expressed caution about the proposal.
“I’m all for incentivizing and paying our people,” she said. “I am concerned about the draw it is going to make on our budget.”
McRae asked how much MCSD already has budgeted to take from its general fund balance. That’s $20 million, said MCSD chief financial officer Janice Bloodworth.
“So, right now, we are over our revenue for the year by $20 million,” McRae said, “and we’re going to add another $3.7 million to that? I just want everybody to be aware of that, to let that digest and think a little bit about our finances.”
The board in October approved employee retention stipends, ranging from $500 to $2,000, to be paid before the holidays and totaling approximately $8 million.
MCSD has more than 5,500 professionals serving more than 30,000 students, according to its website.
McRae reminded her colleagues that chunk of money also came from the general fund balance. MCSD’s fund balance at the end of 2025, Bloodworth said, was over $100 million. The school district’s fiscal year 2026 general fund budget, which the board approved last summer, estimated expenditures of $417.8 million and a fund balance of $68.3 million.
What is proper amount for general fund balance?
Naomi Buckner, the board’s District 4 representative, noted the governor has been “criticizing school board members for having so much of what they call excessive money in fund balances.”
So she asked what best practices say is the proper amount.
“We strive to have 60 days in fund balance,” Bloodworth said.
Buckner asked how much money is 60 days’ worth of fund balance. Bloodworth said she would get back to the board with the amount. She didn’t reply to the Ledger-Enquirer’s query before publication.
“OK, so here’s what I’m asking,” Buckner said. “The $20 million that Ms. McRae is concerned with, even if we have over $20 million, will we still have a fund balance of 60 days?”
“Yes,” Bloodworth replied.
McRae wasn’t satisfied.
“I fully get that we have plenty of money right now,” she said. “But the concern is … if we continue to draw $15 million (from the general fund balance) just for basic operations a year, we will very quickly get down to less than 60 days of reserves because I imagine 60 days of reserves is probably $50 million or $60 million.”
McRae emphasized she supports passing along the bonuses the state allocated, “but I am concerned when we further it, when we have already given money (for retention stipends)) this fall to everybody. … Most of us can’t live like what we’re doing with the taxpayers’ money.”
Chairwoman adds perspective
Board chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1 explained that because “we support small schools, small classrooms, when the governor makes these allocations, it sounds like a really good idea, but (all MCSD job positions) are just not all funded (from the state).”
So, if the eligibility for these retention supplements isn’t expanded in MCSD, Green said, “we would be leaving out people who the governor actually intended to give these stipends, bonuses, whatever you’re calling it, and that is going to run school districts like ours over budget.”
McRae called that explanation “a little misleading.” The governor didn’t sign a bill that gives the bonus to “all categories of staff, and we are expanding it much more than what he intended, which is going to put a financial strain on us.
“Again, I very much agree with what Ms. Hugley Green is saying, but that is a very small portion of the $3.7 million. The $3.7 million is expanding it to a lot more staff categories and areas than what was given. And, again, we already did give stipends this fall, that was above and beyond.”
Buckner weighed in again.
“Everybody in here is watching the budget,” she said. “… We know to watch our money. We’re not going to run out of money.”
Green interjected, “A lot of the problem comes in when you don’t define what a teacher is. When you just say teacher, we got a lot of people with teacher certifications that would argue that they do impact the classroom.”
The ESSER funds factor
McRae countered that the “only reason we have $100 million in reserve is because we got lots and lots of money from ESSER funds.”
ESSER is the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief federal allocation that was sent in three rounds between March 2020 and March 2021, totaling approximately $190 billion to support K-12 schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. MCSD reported in June 2021 that it had received approximately $114 million in ESSER funding.
“Before ESSER funds, we were taking money away from employees because we had gotten ourselves in a bad financial situation,” McRae said. “And that is something that I never, ever, ever want to happen. And that’s why I’m concerned. I very much hope we don’t have another pandemic, even if it did rescue us financially. That money usually does not fall out of the sky, and I’m very concerned we would keep eating away a lot of the money we saved from ESSER without another way to shore that up.”
Kia Chambers, the nine-member board’s only countywide representative, said she agrees with McRae that “we have to be very cognizant of when we pull money out of fund balance. … I just hate to cut from personnel. There may be other programs, or there may be other materials that maybe we can buy at a cheaper rate. There may be other ways we can cut.
“But for me, this is called a retention supplement, which means we are saying to our teachers, to our counselors, to our principals, ‘We appreciate you. We want to retain you, and here is your retention supplement.’ So, for me, I definitely agree that we have to be a good steward over taxpayer dollars. I just hate to go to give the stipend to the principal but not the assistant principal. So that is where I feel good about confirming the retention supplement for all staff this time, but it will be up for a vote next week.”
