The Snowflake Unified School District Governing Board held its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, June 14. The most notable items on the agenda were the 2018-2019 budget and the teacher salary increase. The Arizona Legislature and Governor Doug Ducey recently approved plans for raising teacher pay and now it was the SUSD governing board’s turn to decide how to spend that money. Lawmakers left it up to each district to decide whether that money will be spent on teacher pay increases.
SUSD Superintendent Hollis Merrell said, “This will be something that will be brought up in years to come, I think. We do know districts that are withholding some of that amount that the state funded to use for other purposes besides teacher increases. They can do that.”
SUSD Business Manager Mark Ollerton presented the district’s recommendations to the board regarding a proposed salary increase. SUSD not only budgeted all the additional state money to a teacher pay increase but went above and beyond that amount. The district proposed an average teacher base rate pay increase of 12 percent. That will cost the district $667,000. The amount the state will fund for these salary increases is $515,506. “This is just certified teachers that are in the classrooms,” said Ollerton.
That will bring the base rate teacher pay for a new teacher to $35,000 annually plus Proposition 301 money that is paid in three installments in the amount of $9,000. That brings the base rate to a total of $44,000 annually. That is a total increase to the base rate of $5,150 compared to the previous fiscal year. Proposition 301 is the 0.6 cent sales tax increase voters passed in 2000. The board approved the salary increase.
SUSD board President Carol Owens asked the opinion of teachers in the audience regarding the salary increase. Taylor Intermediate School sixth grade teacher Marie Caldwell said, “I am very thankful for Mr. Ollerton and Mr. Merrell for their consideration to teachers. We work super hard. I appreciate being supported by our school district.” The district hopes this will help retain teachers and recruit new teachers as needed due to offering a more competitive wage.
With the teacher salary increase approved it was time to address the budget for the 2018-2019 year. Again, Ollerton presented the budget information to the board. The total maintenance and operations expenditures come in at $15.3 million, which is an overall increase of 10.8 percent. That includes things such as instruction, support services, transportation and athletics.
Areas within those expenditures that noted significant increases include an increase of 16.3 percent in administration expenditures, a 12.9 increase in special education instruction and a 3.8 percent increase in operations and maintenance of sites. “We are funded on current general enrollment and the challenge of that is we build our budget in July 2017 and we will know in August of 2018 if what we decided back in 2017 is correct,” said Ollerton.
The board approved the budget, which will be submitted to the state and a copy posted on the SUSD website. The community can attend a public hearing at the next meeting for the budget.
Ollerton also indicated that the district’s credit rating has been upgraded to an A+ rating based on their carry over funds and their financial position. The Navajo County Treasurer is requiring the district to open a line of credit at Wells Fargo. The district has not needed a line of credit and has no plans to use it but it is being required it be in place in the event they do need it. Navajo County specified the bank and not the district.
The next governing board meeting will be at 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 12, at the SUSD conference room, located at 682 School Bus Lane in Snowflake. There will be a public hearing at that meeting for the 2018-2019 budget.
