Williamson County school board requests teacher pay increases to help address retention, hiring

Williamson County Schools board of education voted in favor of three resolutions to address staff hiring and retention challenges, as well as student population growth.

The first proposes a mid-year 3% increase in salary for all teachers and a $1 pay increase for all hourly staff, while the second would add just over $3.4 million in funding to the current budget for additional general and special education teachers. The third would implement a $5,000 retention bonus to currently employed school psychologists.

"We hope that our staff recognizes that we're dong what we can within the funding that we have," WCS Superintendent Jason Golden said Tuesday at the board's January meeting.

If approved by the county commission, pay raises will be effective Feb. 1 and payed by Feb. 28 due to the county commission's meeting schedule. The additional needed positions have already been created and hired for, but need to be approved by the board and commission in order to be noted as expenditures in the amended 2021-2022 budget.

"This is extremely unusual," Golden said. "It is hard to make a change for a government entity on a budget."

Funding for both pay increases and additional positions are already accounted for by WCS through sales tax revenues as well as projected revenues for the winter and the next budget cycle. Sales tax is one of three buckets that fund the district, alongside property taxes and state Basic Education Program (BEP) funding.

More: How Tennessee is leading efforts to combat teacher shortages with free apprenticeship programs

Between July and October of 2021, the district 's sales tax revenue totaled around $7 million above the projected amount for that period. District administration attributes the rise in this bucket of funding mainly to population growth across the county.

"We are very comfortable because of the way sales tax is trending," WCS assistant superintendent of budget and finance Rachel Farmer said Thursday at the board's January work session. "Even if there would be something that would slow down the growth that we're seeing, (sales tax revenue) is up substantially 20-30% within (July to October) compared to the prior year and even higher than the year before that."

The district pay increases would accompany a potential $1 hourly pay increase proposal for county government staff. The change may be brought to the county commission by county mayor Rogers Anderson in February and act as a baseline for the next budget cycle, which includes county employee pay.

"(The Mayor) encouraged us to do the same," Golden said.

The district currently has 12 vacancies out of 54 total school psychologist positions. To combat "pay incentives and higher salaries at competing school districts," Golden said administration has "determined (the issue) needed an immediate response with a retention bonus."

The $5,000 bonus would be provided in two installments over the course of the rest of this school year to currently employed school psychologists, totaling around $210,000 for the district across around 42 positions. There are currently retention bonuses utilized for various positions across the district.

Further funding for the continuation or expansion of the three resolutions will be discussed as the start of the next budget cycle nears. Come February, WCS’s human resources representatives are scheduled to provide a presentation to the board of education on the status of open positions, separations, pay and more regarding WCS's staffing challenges.

In past meetings throughout the year, Golden and board members agreed these resolutions are just some of the first steps in addressing staffing challenges that have risen especially since the onset of COVID-19 and the rise in cost of living across Williamson County.

"One focus point that we have, we continue to emphasize and work on it, and we know we need to continue to work on this, is to provide a good living salary for our professionals," Golden said. "And when the market changes quickly, there's some reasonableness to making a quick change to let folks know we're responsive."

Ongoing staff challenges

WCS publicly discussed staffing challenges throughout 2021. Earlier this year, Golden and the administration committed to exploring "market conditions" in order to determine a way to address the issues at hand.

The board also approved an hourly pay raise for early-career special education teachers.

As of last week, WCS had 71 open teaching positions or a teacher fill rate of around 98%, according to Golden. But across the district there are around 200 additional vacancies among "classified positions," such as cafeteria workers, bus drivers and teacher assistants, according to Golden and WCS assistant superintendent of human resources Vickie Hall.

Over the course of 2021, the district experienced 529 "separations" in which a staff member left employment with the district in some fashion. In 2019, separations totaled 388 and in 2020 the total was even lower.

"We are losing people to private schools and other districts. That is something we've taken a note of," Hall said. "But it's for a variety of reasons."

Hall and Golden agreed that a large portion of teachers who departed the district were early in their careers with between zero to six years of experience. Some who left noted the "challenging climate" of working as a teacher and in schools today, according to exit interviews and data collection.

As of last summer, a first-year teacher's starting salary at WCS was $40,150, while a teacher with the same level of experience would be paid around $46,271 at Metro Nashville Public Schools and $42,790 at Rutherford County Schools. According to Hall, WCS is still around 15% below average teacher salaries at MNPS and around 7% below RCS.

Anika Exum is a reporter covering Williamson County at The Tennessean, part of the USA Today Network — Tennessee. Reach her at aexum@tennessean.com, 615-347-7313 or on Twitter @aniexum.

To stay updated on Williamson County news, sign up for our newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Williamson County school board requests teacher pay increases