Salary freeze and change in bus driver hours on the horizon

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

The Jefferson County School Board is nearing the end of its budget year 2022-23 and making preparations to approve a budget for the 2023-24 school year.
During the current fiscal year, the board has not been receiving regular budget reports from the district office, though they repeatedly requested to have them on a monthly basis. Rather, it was not until a workshop meeting on March 13, 2023, that Acting Chief Financial Officer Carol MacLeod presented a first batch of budget reports for July through September of 2022. After being put on notice, McLeod was ready by the board's workshop meeting on April 10, 2023, to present a batch of five more months of budget reports, showing fund activity through the end of February.
At the board's regular meeting on May 8, 2023, however, the “March Monthly Budget Report” was pulled from the agenda at the outset, as being unavailable. Further, budget matters were not on the agenda of the May 22 Special Board Meeting, and the June 5 Workshop Board Meeting was cancelled. By the June 12 Regular Board Meeting, Superintendent of Schools Eydie Tricquet gave a presentation of “simple” budget reports to give a “quick overview” for March through May 2023 for the board members' review, though they were not available for public view until after the meeting. According to these reports, at the end of May 2023, a balance of $4,584,505.43 remained after accounting for income and expenses. Capital Outlay funds grew from $1,677,439.74 at the beginning of March to $1,837,999.11 by the end of May.
During the same presentation phase of the meeting, some information was also provided in writing to board members as a kind of estimated budget for 2023-24. During discussion of the estimate, questions arose about changes to scheduling for bus drivers.
“Last year I was not given correct information about how long it took to run a [bus] route,” Tricquet said. “So I wanted to make sure that the bus drivers were covered and that they could qualify for benefits because the year before one of their complaints was that when they were off they didn't get paid and they didn't have benefits that they wanted. Some of them didn't get to join FRS. So I said, okay let's guarantee. I went to the board; we guaranteed them 30 hours [a week]. Well, I got to investigate more into the school year. The routes were running 65 minutes or less, and we as a board paid them for six hours [a day]. They did not work a full six hours, but we paid them.”
Tricquet stated that bus drivers who wanted to work the hours in between their routes could help meet other needs at our school, such as para assistants, lunchroom assistants and hall monitors.
“We do not want anyone to not get their 30 hours if they want to,” Tricquet added, “but I feel they should come and work.”
Later in the meeting, during time for public comments, Bus Driver Mae Howard spoke to this issue.
“We are not just out there for a route,” said Howard. “We get up early in the morning, We have to check the bus, and we have to sweep the bus. We are not just out there driving... We have the most important job, the bus drivers. If we didn't bring the kids, none of you would have a job. We have to be the sheriff on the bus. We have to be the police on the bus. I don't have an aide on my bus, so it's a lot of stuff that the drivers have to do. I have a CDL license. Not just anybody can get up under that bus and bring those kids to school safe and sound... Don't look at my time. Look at my job. Thank you.”
Other fiscal matters on the Consent Agenda portion of the June 12 meeting included unanimous approval of six items, including the Check Report for May 2023, the Payroll Report for May 2023, Title I/Part A Amendment 1 Grant, Title I/Part A Amendment 2 Grant, IDEA Part B Amendment 1 Grant and ESSER II Supplemental Programming Grant.
Among the 11 action items on the June 12 agenda, many have implications for budget planning for the 2023-24 school year. These included approval of contracts/agreements with Panhandle Area Educational Consortium (PAEC), Professional Development Center Services, Gateway Educational Computing Consultants Services, Student Data Services, PAEC My Virtual Classroom, PAEC Risk Management Consortium, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office for School Resource Officer Program, Eagle Tree Technologies Information Technology, Linewize Cloud-Managed Filter and Cyber-Safety Controls, and School Management Information Systems.
The last action item called for freezing the salary schedule at its 2022-23 levels.
“We created salary schedules with steps in them,” stated Tricquet, “and I am requesting until we get a better handle on our budget that we freeze the salary schedules. We've met the requirement for the state, to make sure that our lower salary starts at $47,500 and we go up to $67,500.”
She explained that, for example, in the current instructional salary there's a step giving an $800 increase for the teachers. She wants the board to stick with the current level, without the increase.
“I know that budget, and we can operate within it,” she said.
District 4 Board Member Bill Brumfield then asked, “If you freeze it and then if you find out that we got the money, can we give it retroactively?”
Tricquet replied, “Probably what I would do at that point is request that we pay a one-time stipend.”
Brumfield returned, “Are the teachers going to be okay with this?”
Tricquet said, “I don't know. All I know is I'm trying to stay within our budget, and that's the hard decisions that I get to make.”
District 1 Board Member Gladys Roann-Watson asked, What does it do for bus drivers?”
“They will stay at $17.50 an hour,” said Tricquet.
District 3 Board Member Brenda Wirick then joined the discussion, saying, “I understand why we freeze salaries. In Leon County, I've been frozen at the same salary for four years. At the same time, I also understand rewarding our teachers and all employees for the experience in coming back, and I feel like everybody needs a cookie to, you know, to come back. It's tough teaching... I fully support rewarding you all financially, but if we can't do it, I feel your pain.”
Board Attorney Tommy Reeves pointed out that the board would still have to vote in the future when presented with the actual written salary schedule for the 2023-24 school year. Tricquet was at this point just getting the board's permission to prepare the preliminary budget with a salary freeze.
When it came to a vote on the salary freeze, it was 4 to 1, with Wirick voting against it.
The Jefferson County School Board holds its next meeting on Monday, June 26. It will be a combination of a Workshop Board Meeting and a Special Board Meeting. The Workshop Board Meeting begins at 5 p.m., and once the workshop agenda is concluded, the board will move immediately into its Special Board Meeting. Those interested in attending should note that this means the Special Board Meeting may begin before 6 p.m. To preview the agendas and relevant attachments when they are posted, go to JeffersonSchools.net/schoolboard and follow the BoardDocs link at the bottom of the screen. All pubic meetings of the Jefferson County School Board are streamed live on the Facebook page for Jefferson County Schools K-12, and video recordings of past meetings are available there as well.