BELLE — Maries County R-2 School District teachers will receive a pay increase starting July 1 with the 2024-25 school year.

Pay schedules were on the  March 26 Maries R-2 Board of Education agenda and introduced by Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham.

“There is a whole lot of unknown happening, talking about our legislature,” Basham began. “My recommendation is to move the base (pay) to $38,000. It would be an eight percent increase.”

The base pay increase for teachers would be a $3,000 increase from $35,000 to $38,000, Basham said.

“We will be in a better place to get to the $40,000 minimum that will be included in the legislature for the 2025-26 school year,” Basham said.

Board member Joey Butler II asked about government funds available to assist the district in covering the cost.

“Last year there was government money for that,” he said. “Are they not doing that this year?”

Basham said the state government likely will offer assistance to provide teachers with wage increases.

“There is legislation in a different act that is going to move the minimum to $38,000, and next year it is anticipated it will be $40,000,” Basham said. “If we don’t do the baseline, they will, but that really only helps our teachers who are under $38,000. If we don’t move the base, it doesn’t help those teachers who are over $38,000.”

Butler asked about the property tax discussion that would allow seniors to cease paying personal property taxes.

“In the legislature on the property taxes, is there any talk of replacing that money to schools, ambulance districts, things like that, from another — no movement?” Butler asked.

Basham said there hasn’t been a discussion regarding how schools and other publicly funded entities are expected to make up the loss in revenue.

“How are we funding this?” Butler asked.

Basham said the district is good for this budget year.

“It will give us a little bit of deficit spending, but we still have that HVAC project that’s still out there,” Basham said. “I don’t really know how much HVAC project is this year versus how much is rolled over to next year. What I consider the deficit spending is on the HVAC project. This we should be sustained within our budget.”

Butler asked what would happen if they cut property taxes and Basham said the district should still have enough money to deficit spend, especially since the district was able to save more during COVID-19 by offsetting operating and salary costs with pandemic funds.

“We do have a little more in reserves than we normally do,” she said. “We’re good for two years at least. Next year we make our last UMB payment on our old HVAC system. We will make our last payment and then we will be debt-free which will offset some of this cost. I feel confident the state is going to make us move to that $40,000 if we don’t do anything, at least halfway, it will be a huge jump next year.”

Basham continued that the salary schedule she is proposing includes every teacher’s step in pay as well.

Amy Kiso asked if everyone was caught up to where they needed to be and Basham said yes, they fixed everything that had been frozen two years ago and all employees were on time within the salary schedule.

“I tried to work it to get it to $40,000,” she said. “I worked really  hard to see if I could get it to that $40,000, but with the property tax issue, until May, until we get through the legislative season, I wasn’t comfortable with that commitment.”

Basham said she spoke with schools surrounding Maries R-2 and found other schools within the conference such as Viburnum and Steelville are moving to $38,000 base rate pay, Bourbon will go to $36,500. Owensville is at $38,000 now and thought they would go to $39,000 and St. James is at $38,500 but hadn’t decided to stay or increase the base pay. Vienna may go to $33,000.

“So we are pretty close to the other schools at this point,” Board member Dawn Hicks asked.

“We are trying really hard,” Basham agreed. “We want to retain staff and part of retaining staff is not being able to drive 15 minutes and make thousands more than what we can offer. We are still paying $500 of their health insurance every month and that stayed the same. There was no increase in health insurance. I know if feels like a big jump, eight percent feels like a big jump, but I feel like if we can support it in our budget, then my recommendation is to do it at this time.”

Board President Kenda Sanders agreed that eight percent is a big jump.

“It’s not that our staff isn’t worth it because they are worth eight percent and more, it’s just a big increase,” Sanders said.

Basham said they currently have 38.5 teachers who have their bachelor’s degree only and 21.5 who at the master’s level. Most teachers are still at the lower level masters.

“If we didn’t raise it, there are a lot of those teachers who are going to get the baseline anyway,” Basham said. “But then the teachers in columns E-I who would not receive anything if we relied on just the baseline data.”

The estimated cost to the district is about $299,000 in payroll for certified staff and $121,150 for non-certified staff for the 2024-25 school year, for $420,152 total.

“Add an additional year of experience to each of the columns,” Basham said. “We will have two teachers who will not get a salary increase if we do not extend the column. The cost is less than $1,000 which is already included in the above total.”

Basham said the total increase would be $301,693 for certified staff in payroll and benefits.

Sanders questioned how much the payroll would increase with the addition of the school resource officer and chefs.

“It’s about $300,000, but it’s offset by the fact that it is already a purchased service,” Basham said. “It’s not an increase in money, but taking it out of our service and moving it to our payroll because they are becoming our employees rather than a purchase.”

Basham added that the district hasn’t hired those staff and won’t until next school year (July 10), so it isn’t currently reflected in the budget.

Director Aaron Vandegriff asked if it would affect the salary schedule would benefit the paraprofessionals and Basham said they would also receive an eight percent increase.

“Anybody on who is not on the salary schedule will also receive an eight percent increase,” Basham said.

Sanders asked what the average pay for a para would be.

“It’s in the $13.50 range now,” Basham said. “A couple of years ago we moved everyone up because we wanted to be at the state minimum.”

Para’s would receive about $14.58 an hour.

Board member Garret Bialzcyk made a motion to approve the proposed salary schedule and an eight percent increase to those not on the salary schedule for the 2024-25 school year.  The motion passed with all in favor.