Each full-time North Little Rock School District employee -- including teachers and support staff members -- will receive a one-time, $2,500 bonus next month in lieu of permanent increases in pay for the 2017-18 school year.
The School Board voted for the bonus at a regular monthly meeting Thursday night during which it also selected Sandi Campbell to be board president, replacing Darrell Montgomery, and tabled for a few weeks a decision on a technology plan that would provide one computer device per student.
The bonuses, which will cost the district $4,220,495, are expected to be distributed to employees Nov. 22.
With the board vote, the North Little Rock district becomes the first among the four public school districts in Pulaski County to approve either bonuses or pay raises this school year -- other than the salary step increases that eligible employees in the systems automatically receive for their additional year of work experience.
The bonuses are one-time payments that are not carried forward into future years. That's in contrast to traditional raises that are built into the employee salary schedules and become an annual financial obligation to the employees for a district.
"I'm really happy for the staff," Superintendent Kelly Rodgers said about the bonus after the meeting. "It's really good. We're moving forward."
Board members voted 4-2 for the $2,500 bonus for the state-licensed or certified employees, which includes teachers and principals. The disagreement centered on whether the bonus should be $2,500 as requested by the district's Personnel Policies Committee of teachers and administrators, or a more financially conservative $2,000 amount that was recommended by the district's administration.
In response to questions from board members, Brian Brown, the district's director of purchasing and finance, said the district could afford an employee bonus of either amount by drawing from a $30.5 million construction savings fund. But Brown also said the greater the cost of the bonus, the less there would be in the savings fund to accomplish other district needs -- including the purchase of new student computers and other technology support -- this year and into the future.
The district's plans for one computer device per student, plus computers for the staff, expanded bandwidth and other infrastructure, are expected to cost about $2.5 this year and almost $2 million in each of the following two years.
The savings fund is money the district has set aside over time to offset the loss of $7.6 million a year in special state desegregation aid. This is the last year for that state payment.
"Today we are in the right position to do what is right for our people who work so hard," School Board member Tracy Steele said in support of the $2,500 bonus.
Steele, along with board members Dorothy Williams, Taniesha Richardson-Wiley and Hannah Chambers voted for the $2,500.
Campbell and Luke King voted against it. Montgomery was out of the room at the time of the vote but was recorded as being against the larger bonus. He had suggested earlier that the $2,000 bonus be paid in November and an additional $500 bonus be considered later in the school year if revenue and expenditures met projections.
Board members sent back to the Personnel Policies Committee the committee's request for $2,500 bonuses in each of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years.
The board votes on the bonuses for the district's 713 certified employees was followed with a unanimous vote for the $2,500 bonus for 574 full-time classified employees. The district's 163 part-time support-service employees will be paid 50 to 75 percent of the bonus, depending on the number of hours they work per day.
The 9,000-student district has annual revenue of almost $109 million, and pays an average teacher salary of $51,099.81.
Metro on 10/20/2017