All Cobb County School District employees will get raises ranging between 8 and 12.6 percent in the fiscal year 2020 budget presented to school board members and the public on Wednesday.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said it’s the biggest raise in at least 25 years and may be the biggest ever for Georgia’s second-largest school district, with 112,000 students.
“We have truly maximized the dollars so we can do this,” he told board members at a Wednesday afternoon work session. The board was expected to tentatively approve the $1.17 billion budget propopsal, with final approval expected May 16.
The raises are across-the-board, and apply to all non-temporary employees, from teachers to administrators, and include custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, substitute teachers, social workers and counselors.
Ragsdale said the size and scope of the raises were enabled by the Georgia legislature’s approval of $3,000 pay raises for teachers.
The Cobb budget includes “step” increases for eligible employees and adds school nurses to the “step” ranks for the first time. Teacher allotments will increase by 90, and district public safety employees also will get a “competitive salary adjustment” in the budget, which maintains a property tax rate of 18.9 mills.
According to Brad Johnson, the district’s chief financial officer, the raises will account for $74 million in expenses. The additional teacher allotments, adjustments for public safety, school nurse “step” increases, a change in how bus drivers are compensated and 7.5 new custodial positions will cost another $9.6 million.
A total of $81 million in increased revenues, including $43 million in state Quality Basic Education funding as well as $30 million in additional property taxes due to an estimated 5.5 percent growth in the Cobb tax digest, has been worked into the budget proposal.
The proposed budget also calls for spending $18.3 million in reserves.
“I’m very pleased with the raise and the respect and consideration it shows for all employees,” said Connie Jackson of the Cobb County Association of Educators, which represents teachers and non-administrative employees. “I’m super ecstatic we got step raises for nurses. We can offer them an incentive to stay.”
Ragsdale said those teachers on the higher end of the proposed raises will be newer teachers, in large part to incentivize retention.
Deputy superintendent John Adams said Cobb has the highest retention rate of the six biggest school districts in Georgia and has the lowest rate of teachers leaving for other districts.
But Cobb is behind other districts in metro Atlanta in starting teacher pay, which is around $43,000 a year.
Last year most Cobb school employees received a 2.6-percent raise and a 1.1 percent bonus. The former became available only after the state ended education austerity cuts.
There will be no bonuses in this Cobb budget, Ragsdale said, because he wanted the additional pay for employees, especially teachers, to add to their retirement system calculations.
“There are a lot of teachers watching this meeting now who are a lot happier than they were this morning,” said school board member David Banks of East Cobb.
The full budget details will be posted soon on the CCSD’s budget page. Another public hearing will take place at 6:30 p.m. on May 16, right before the board is scheduled to vote on final budget adoption.
The new budget will take effect on July 1, when the district’s fiscal year begins.
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