GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — District leaders are taking a new approach to classifying employee pay grades in the newly recommended budget.
The budget totals more than $1 billion.
"The HVAC systems are failing and we're trying to catch up to decades of underfunding," said superintendent of Guilford County Schools Dr. Whitney Oakley Tuesday as she presented her budget recommendation to the Board of Education -- the first step in a long process.
A big part of the budget includes better pay.
“I think this the starting point of the negotiation and it's why we showed what getting us above market value would cost in terms of employee compensation, you will see that is almost $78 million dollars," Dr. Oakley said.
A long-term goal is to offer the most competitive salaries in the market, but right now, the school district is aiming to merely match other similar-sized counties.
Matching the market would mean restructuring how they pay employees.
"Just getting a raise at 17 years of service or 18 years of service, causes you to want to leave and go to another position or to another employment," said District 7 Board Member Bettye T. Jenkins.
"If you're a teaching assistant, if you have 30 years of experience, or if you have no years of experience, you're receiving the same wage so, it's much more difficult to recruit somebody who is bringing an experience to the district," Michael LaClair, GCS's Senior Executive Director of HR Operations said.
Another goal of the budget is to raise teacher pay by increasing what GCS adds to salaries on top of what the state provides. Currently, Guilford County is below what other counties like Wake, Durham, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth pay.
An additional $10 million in the proposed budget would help close this gap.
"We can certainly take, add, we can certainly go for more, but the conversation on matching market to make us competitive with organizations like our own is why we got," said Dr. Oakley.
All this money will hopefully attract talent and retain current workers both in the classroom and beyond.
The recommended budget is $1,029,473,351 in total from state, local, and federal funds.
On May 9th, the Guilford County Board of Education will hold a public hearing on the budget before voting to send it to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.