Bonus or raises for new, veteran teachers? Beaufort Co. schools consider salary options
Beaufort County School District administrators are considering three avenues of pay raises for teachers next year, outlined in a Wednesday presentation to the school board that could add as much as $6,000 to annual teacher pay.
The three options would target different groups of teachers and tackle the district’s long-standing issue with teacher retention to varying degrees, changing aspects of the district’s “step” salary schedule that bases pay on years of experience and education level.
While the option costs are rough estimates, district officials told the board it would cost around $11 million per year to implement all three:
Restoring a salary “step” for second-year teachers, providing a pay increase at all levels at a cost of $3.6 million;
Moving a salary cap for veteran teachers from 24 years of experience to 28, adding to potential pension payouts after retirement at a cost of $3.5 million;
Increasing a $5,000 annual “locality supplement” to $7,000, paid out in two installments per year at a cost of $5 million.
District spokesman Jim Foster said Thursday that if the board approved any of these options, the majority of the money would come from local tax revenue sent to the district’s operating funds, though “some” of the funding for an added second-year teacher step could come from state funds.
The discussion came one day after South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster released a proposal to give all teachers in the state a $3,000 pay raise, according to the Post & Courier.
If that raise, or any others from the state, came to pass, that money would come from the state and not local tax revenue, Foster said Thursday.
No action was taken on the teacher pay proposals Wednesday. But board members and district officials did have a robust discussion about the merits of rewarding new teachers versus veterans, and the impact of the four-year-old locality supplement program, introduced to provide district employees with a bonus to cover Beaufort County’s high cost of living.
Beaufort County teachers hit a salary cap in their 24th year of full-time teaching in the U.S., despite being ineligible for retirement until they’ve completed 28 years. Depending on the teacher’s education level, that cap ranges between $58,640 for those with bachelor’s degrees and $81,485 for those with doctoral degrees.
Retirement-eligible teachers’ salaries would increase by at least $2,000 across the board with the higher cap.
“I know it would be nice to extend it to 28,” operations committee chairman David Striebinger said Wednesday of the raised salary cap. “But are we losing teachers in that range? I know we’re losing them in the front end.”
McMaster’s Tuesday announcement came after months of statehouse debate around South Carolina’s rank as the 41st state in the country for teacher pay and the churn of teachers leaving the profession.
According to a January study by the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement, more than 5,300 SC teachers quit their jobs by the end of the 2017-18 school year.
The quitting trend extends to Beaufort County and is “top heavy” to new teachers, district HR director Alice Walton said Wednesday.
Board member Tricia Fidrych, a former Beaufort County special education teacher, also asked if the locality supplement that started in 2015 had impacted teacher turnover rate.
“We’re still hiring 300 to 350 teachers every year,” District HR officer Dale Crawford replied. “We have for the last three to four years.”
However, district talent acquisition specialist Jill McAden said the supplement was one of the district’s “most powerful recruiting tools.”
Payroll makes up about 75 percent of the district’s annual budget, and will be a focal point as the board gears up for their 2020-21 budget process.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 4:28 PM.