Aiken school district looking at COLA increase for employees

May 28—The Aiken County Public School District is looking at giving all of its employees a 3.25% cost of living adjustment in the upcoming budget.

Aiken County Board of Education members accepted the administration recommendation for increasing the teacher and non-teacher pay scale by 3.25% during their meeting on Tuesday, May 24. This action was needed to give the district guidance on which way to go when working on the budget.

The guidance was needed after the Senate budget came out with a $2,000 increase for teachers instead of the $4,000 increase the House budget had. Tray Traxler, the chief finance officer, told board members that a group of state legislators had a brief committee meeting on May 24 to begin the process of working out the differences.

"We've discussed previously how the House version for Aiken is more beneficial to us," Traxler said. The House 2 version of the budget is more beneficial to us than the Senate version, but there are some pretty significant differences right there. We'll continue to watch that."

A major difference between the two budgets is that the House budget has a $4,000 increase for teachers, while the senate version has a $2,000 increase for teachers. Because of this, the school district has the school board for guidance on how they should proceed and offered two options for board members to consider. Traxler told school board members that they looked at several scenarios, and had two to propose to the school board. First was a 3.25% cost of living adjustment for all employees, and second was a $2,000 per cell increase on the teacher scale and a 2.5% COLA for non-teachers.

The school board is expected to vote on the second and final reading of the budget during their June 14 meeting, how Traxler said legislators aren't expected back until June 15.

"If they approve a budget shortly thereafter it's not unusual for it to take two plus weeks before the state department gets actual allocations to us. It wouldn't be immediate," Traxler said. "Just for reference, last year we approved the budget at the end of May. We ended up coming back on July 13 with amendment number 1 because we didn't have final numbers yet."

School board member Cameron Nuessle had a question about a future expense that he thought might need to be considered for the upcoming budget. He talked about Bill 946, which guarantees an unencumbered 30-minute lunch for teachers in elementary school, and wanted to know if aides would have to be hired to help with that and how much it would cost.

"We did look at that," Traxler said. "Starting that earlier this spring because initially we thought there was a chance it may pass for this coming year. Based on those estimates we believe it may average about two aides per elementary school at a cost a little more than a million dollars. We could be looking at that. This legislation, I think the exact wording was the provisions would have to be in place before July 1, 2023. My understanding is that the state would provide some guidance on that. We would have to adopt a policy to say how we were going to accomplish it..."

Nuessle said his concern was focused on whether funding will increase for next year's budget and wonders if they should budget for that cost in the upcoming budget.

"We know we have this cost coming. Shouldn't we budget for it this school year and have allocated all the money, essentially with that 3.25% COLA, or should we hold that back because we know the year after next we're going to have an increase in expenses," Nuessle said.

School board member Brian Silas said he was anxious to hear about how supplements will be addressed in the budget.

"I know there was some considerations going on, moving some things around, making adjustments, so I'm anxious to see how that may change from the last presentation that was approved on first reading. I'm hoping to see some positive direction there," Silas said.

Traxler told board members that there was some positive news from the Board of Economic Advisors, who are looking at an increase in funds.

"They're looking at almost a $336 million increase in general fund recurring dollars for 2022-23, $952 million nonrecurring general fund dollars this year, $29.5 million nonrecurring EIA dollars this year, so there is some positive news out there. A little bit of concern on whether or not that is sustainable given the current state of the economy, inflation, etc. But yes sir, those are things to be mindful. One thing I shared early on and I want to mention it again now, part of balancing our budget now is flexing EIA carry over money that those funds go away in a year anyway. So we would be looking at a hole in all likelihood to start out next year this time whenever we're looking at the budget."

Board member Jason Crane asked what the numbers from the BEA meant for the school district.

"At this point I'm not sure. It may be something that is considered once legislatures come back, it may be something that is considered by the conference committee," Traxler said. "Right now the only possible new money I'm aware of is the additional $50 million the House 2 version of the budget added. But some of these other things may come into play. It's just difficult to say, unfortunately. I would love to have better answers for you right now. I feel like we're much further behind than we typically are this time of year."

Crane expressed that he hopes that legislators would give some additional funding to the school districts.

"I hope that they will see the wisdom in imparting some additional funding as they have seen in their wisdom in imparting additional costs to us coming off a couple of years of budget surpluses," Crane said.