Gilbert Public Schools employees will be getting 2% pay raises for next school year and could get an additional stipend if the district's maintenance and operations override passes in the fall.
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Gilbert Public Schools employees will be getting 2% pay raises for next school year and could get an additional stipend if the district's maintenance and operations override passes in the fall.
The GPS Governing Board unanimously passed the proposal at its April 9 meeting.
"I think we've made it the last several years a priority to pay as best we can all of our employees so that people want to be here and that they know they're valued," Board Member Lori Wood said. "And again, that we have the best possible people in front of our kids."
The stipends would give each hourly employee an additional $600, prorated based on the employee's full-time equivalency, and each teacher, administrator or exempt employee an additional $800, similarly prorated.
The stipends would be paid in equal installments after Jan. 1, 2025, but only if the override passes on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The pay raises will cost the district $4.23 million next fiscal year and the stipends $3.34 million.
Since the district is projecting a loss of 1,200 students in average daily membership — a key enrollment-based figure in the state's budget formula — giving the pay raises requires moves to balance the budget.
Associate Superintendent Bonnie Betz said a loss that size would result in a revenue control limit that would be $2.79 million smaller than this fiscal year, based on Gov. Katie Hobbs' proposed budget.
The district also is projecting an additional $1 million in nondiscretionary increases from inflation and a possible minimum wage increase, but it could realize a savings of $4 million in needing less staff if the district does 1,200 students.
Together with the $7.57 million increase in employee compensation, it would leave the district needing an additional $7.36 million to balance the budget, Betz said.
The district could use $4.71 million contributed from the Classroom Site Fund, which comes from Arizona's education sales tax, plus another $430,000 from other funds for pay increases.
That would leave $2.22 million that the district can get either from drawing down its maintenance and operations budget balance carry forward or a transfer from its capital budget, which also has a large budget balance carry forward.
Board members praised the plan.
Board Member Chad Thompson noted the district had originally projected a loss of 800 students in average daily membership, so he found projecting a larger decrease to be prudent.
"It sounds like even if the worst happens, we've still got money in our budget balance carry forward," he said. "We've still got money in the M&O. It's terrific."
Superintendent Shane McCord said the district has always made its spending decisions with an eye toward maintaining it into the future.
"Tonight, we're saying that we can sustain it for the next three years," he said. "And that's very important when you look at budgets and you look at how the legislature either helps us or doesn't help us in the decisions that they make. But the final decisions come down to us in terms of how we operate and how transparent we are with our funds."
We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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