Horry County Schools’ proposed $1.16B budget includes pay raises, security upgrades

Adam Benson
·2 min read

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Horry County employees and teachers are in line for pay raises next year, with heavy investments in upgraded safety improvements districtwide under a proposed $1.16 spending plan to be made public this week.

Superintendent Rick Maxey on Monday will make his final budget presentation -– one that’s $121 million more than current levels driven partly by student growth and increased costs for health insurance and retirement funds.

“This budget allows the district to continue the significant progress in academic achievement and addresses the instructional and operational needs of serving a growing student population,” a budget summary says.

Highlights of Maxey’s budget include:

  • $1,000 salary increase for teachers

  • 2% salary increase for all eligible employees

  • 3% salary increase for non-teaching professional employees

In all, the raises will cost nearly $15 million. Fixed costs for retirement and health insurance are slated to jump by $4.1 million next year.

Maxey’s budget also suggests hiring two safety and security program specialists and more security guards to conduct “all-day searches,” at a total price tag of $2.3 million.

Security enhancements have been a key issue for district leaders over the past several months. In March, Horry County Schools’ Board of Education overwhelmingly supported a no confidence vote for the district’s security division one month after a student got a gun into Myrtle Beach High School.

Days later, Maxey wrote a letter to security coordinator David Beaty asking him to either retire, resign or be fired per the board’s request. Beaty has been on paid administrative leave since March 27.

Every school will be outfitted with weapon detection systems by the start of the 2024-25 academic year.

More recently, the district was rattled by a slate of threated directed toward Carolina Forest High School – which received six in the span of a week.

Three people have already been charged in connection with a string of them, while authorities traced another to a server based in India.

Horry County police announced that 19-year-old Trenton Alexander Brown of Baton Rouge, La. will be extradited on charges of threatening the use of a destructive device.

Horry County runs the state’s third-largest school district with nearly 46,000 students.

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Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12. See more of his work here.

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