Category Archives: Teachers

What are Metro Atlanta school districts doing about the $3,000 per teacher raise Governor Brian Kemp gave to all Georgia public school districts to pass along to their teachers?

Governor Kemp recently fulfilled one of his campaign promises by signing a budget which includes a $3,000 increase for teacher raises. Our finance department calculates including salary, benefits and pension contribution, it comes out to about $2,775 per teacher.

Dekalb Schools FY2020 Tentative Budget, presented a few weeks ago, did not include that raise for teachers. However, DeKalb Schools Board of Education members have been meeting with senior administrators over the last few days to figure out how to get that money into the hands of the teachers.

First let’s take a look at what the other school districts are doing.

Atlanta Public Schools (APS)
As of April 18, APS is considering two scenarios

Scenario 1 – Includes a $3,000 pay raise for teachers, 1.5% raise for instructional support, $3,000 one time payment for off-step employees, 1% increase for classified staff

Scenario 2 – Includes a $2,000 pay raise for teachers, $1,000 one time payment for off-step employees and 1% pay raise for staff

Cobb County School District
Cobb Schools budget includes an 8% to 12% raise for every non-temporary employee in the district.

Fulton County School District
In addition their regular step, the Fulton Schools proposed salary schedule indicates a $2,775 increase for teachers, principals, asst principals, media specialists, counselors, psychologists and social workers. It also includes a 3% increase for paras, bilingual parent liaisons, clinic aides, bus drivers, custodians and food service workers. 2% raise for all others.

Gwinnett County School District
All employees on the teacher salary schedule will receive a $3,000 raise in addition to their regular step increase. All other employees will see a 2% raise.

Clayton County School District
All employees on the teacher salary schedule will step and get a $2,775 increase. All other employees will step on schedule.

The plan is for all DeKalb Schools employees on the teacher salary schedule to step and receive a $3,000 supplemental salary increase this coming school year. The salary schedule will not change, but the $3,000 supplemental salary will be on top of the current salary schedule.

Where is that money coming from?
We are trimming many of the growth items from the original FY2020 budget. 44 additional maintenance personnel has been trimmed back to 22 people. $2 million has been cut from the growth in transportation and fleet services. The additional $1 million in campus security originally in the FY2020 budget has been cut all together. We also cut or trimmed over $2 million for items like internal auditing, college and career strategic planning, summer school, and horizon schools,.

The rest of it will come from reserves. At this point, I expect FY2020 to take $21 million from our fund balance reserves leaving us with $83 million at the end of 2020 school year.