Houston County School District giving employee raises

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — Teaching staff received a big win in more ways than one. On July 26, Superintendent Mark Scott announced a 4.31% raise for all teaching staff in the Houston County School District.

To clarify, teaching staff means all full-time employees, such as teachers, lunchroom, bus drivers, custodians and more.

“It takes all of us to make a team, and meet the needs of the children,” said Deputy Superintendent of Houston County, Dr. Richard Rogers.

For 12-month employees, the salary increase took place in their July paycheck, but for all other employees, it will begin in their August paycheck, along with semi monthly pay.

“So, all employees will now receive two paychecks instead of one check… we just felt that once a month wasn’t frequent enough… paying them twice a month should help with their personal finances,” said Rogers.

It is important to mention that the decision to move to semi-monthly pay doesn’t change how much an employee gets paid, but it will better benefit those living paycheck to paycheck and allow people to have more liquidity and spend money throughout the month instead of waiting for another month to begin.

When asked why salaries were increased, Roger responded, “Every year our school district, our board members and our executive cabinet, we publish our legislative priorities, and that’s the document we share with our local legislators and senators. And one of our priorities for Houston County is to increase teacher and staff pay… this has been a priority of the district for quite a while”.

Then he said, “Not counting 2020, with a flat increase [in wage], we’ve actually raised salaries 21.81% since 2017”.

Coupled with the step increases teachers are given typically every other year, $18 million has been spent on wages this year.

“Our goal would be that it helps retain employees in our school district, where they want to stay keep working with us, and also help us with keep[ing] new teachers applying to be in our district… so actually our goal would be to help with recruitment and retention,” said Rogers.

But this doesn’t just benefit the teaching staff. By attracting new employees and raising the wages of current ones, it helps increase the revenue brought into Houston County itself.

This would mean that at the highest end, a teacher with a doctorate, who has taught for 21 or more years, will officially be making six figures in Houston County.

In addition, the state’s health benefits for teachers are increasing from $945 a month to $1580, which the Houston County School District is paying for, further benefiting teachers.

Finally, Rogers ended by saying, “Also, we contribute, our school district does, 19.8% of the employee’s salary toward their teacher retirement system… So, for an example… If a teacher teaches 30 years of service, the teacher can draw 60% of their salary after retirement and continue with their state health benefits. And then the teacher retirement system also gives employees a 1.5% raise twice a year during retirement.”

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