Gilmer County School System employees are set to receive pay increases at the beginning of the next fiscal year July 1.
Changes to the pay scale began last November with school nutrition employees, who received an increase to their base pay.
“When we revamped the pay scale, we did some hard work on it to bring it up to be competitive with the restaurants, which is who we’re competing with for workers,” said superintendent Dr. Brian Ridley. “We wanted to do some work on that to make it more competitive.”
In March, Gov. Brian Kemp approved a flat increase of $2,500 to the teacher pay scale, which will boost the average teacher salary in the state to more that $65,000.
Currently, all GCSS classified and certified staff are paid a 10 percent local supplement, which is derived from their state base salary. At the Gilmer County Board of Education’s April meetings, they approved a 2 percent increase in the local supplement for certified staff (teachers and administrators), bumping it to 12 percent. All classified staff — except for nutrition — received a 3 percent increase, with their local supplement now set at 13 percent. The nutrition staff received a 1 percent increase and will have a local supplement of 11 percent.
Furthermore, the coaching supplement budget at Gilmer High was unanimously approved at the board’s regular April meeting. It is set to increase by $11,500, and the bulk of that — all but $1,400 — is dedicated to increasing the supplements of assistant coaches.
“Our supplements here are very competitive with all the schools in our current region, and with the ones in our new region, and in some cases, better,” said county athletic director Paul Standard. “The few increases that were asked for this year were to recognize the time and effort for certain assistants to bring those supplements up to the level that will be commensurate to their level of work, responsibilities and duties associated with.”
Supplements for all coaches at GHS and Clear Creek Middle School can be found on the district website.