County upset about confusion over teacher bonuses
Several Harnett County commissioners expressed concern with the school system to the superintendent Tuesday at the board’s work session in Lillington.
Board Chairman Gordon Springle and Commissioner Barbara McKoy raised their voices during the meeting. Commissioner McKoy questioned the school system as a whole, with focus on quality of education and focus on academic achievement. Chairman Springle openly voiced distaste over school board communication with teachers regarding bonus pay.
Harnett County Schools Superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming presented a half-dozen page packet of information to commissioners, three pages of which were related to teachers supplements. The superintendent would like to see an increase in teachers supplements from the current 5 percent average, to 10 percent. “If we get to 10 percent … , that’s $4.4 million,“ he said.
Following Dr. Fleming’s explanation of the packet, Commissioners Howard Penny and Vice Chairman Joe Miller asked if teacher bonuses could be applied to the supplement percentage. “We can’t count that because since it’s a bonus, we’ve never considered it a part of the supplement schedule. And I know the bonus conversation could take us on a long conversation,” Dr. Fleming said.
Commissioner McKoy interjected, saying, “I want the teachers in this county to get whatever they need, and to get to the level of where they need to be. But the school system in this county is a mess. I hear so many different complaints from parents about the school system. … If we could put more focus on the children and them getting a quality education, that would make me very, very happy.”
Commissioner Miller then reiterated his concern over the teacher bonus, saying, “We want this settled. This is the third year of this, and this is the third year of a complete catastrophe. Why has it turned into such a mess?”
The contention comes over the amount of money budgeted for the bonuses versus how much was paid out.
Harnett County budgeted more than $2.1 million in bonus money. It paid out only just over $1.7 million, after many teachers originally factored in did not qualify. The remaining $422,916 was then transferred into the school board’s capital fund for infrastructural improvements.
“When we talked about this thing to start, we talked about a retention bonus in the very beginning because we had this money coming to us. We talked about that we were going to pay $1,500 to certified teachers,” Chairman Springle said. “We started out with classroom teachers, but it was changed to certified teachers, which, I don’t have a problem with. … We did all that and you all decided that you were going to take out $150 to pay for benefits, and so forth, and that’s your decision. … Then we had some left over, and you all asked if we could transfer that money to a capital fund, so you could use that capital money. … But that’s not the message that the teachers got. The message the teachers got was, we had leftover money and we just didn’t pay them. That’s the message they got. That’s the message that got back to me. It was the wrong message, and that is not going to happen again.”
Mr. Springle was referring to an email sent to school employees by the school board Chairman Bill Morris to Harnett County School System teachers. In that email Mr. Morris said the school board did pay $2.1 million in teacher bonuses and expected to be reimbursed that full sum by the county, but only $1.7 million was sent. He said in a compromise the remaining money was transferred to the school’s capital account from the county.
Mr. Springle said, “The letter that went to the teachers from the school board indicated that we had not spent our money. We kept back money that we did not spend to give you guys because we didn’t want to spend all that money. That was the impression that they got and that hurt people’s feelings because they thought we were not doing our job.”
The chairman said the board wants an agreement that includes a list of the total number of teachers and their years of experience with the county. “We’re going to pay them $1,500 — no matter what we budget. And any money left over is going to be our money because we’re not going to give it to you,” Mr. Springle said.
“I cannot believe the message that was sent to those teachers from the school board. That was absolutely the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life — giving the impression that we had not done our job,” Mr. Springle said. “And here we are coming up with a $1,500 bonus to try to help the schools, help the teachers. That is crazy. That is not going to happen again. That will not happen again.”
He said no one explained to the teachers that budget was based on the total number of teachers and that the county paid out only to teachers who qualified. “The good thing is, in the future, we are going to have an agreement between this board and the school board and you on how this is going to work,” he said.
Dr. Fleming then proposed a joint meeting to work on the bonuses. That meeting is scheduled forMarch 27.
Mrs. McKoy hopes to build a better working relationship with the school board. “We’re supposed to be working together, not trying to work apart from each other,” she said. “The teachers know the story, they know the truth, they know that the last three years about the pay, their pay, and they know that we are working to help them, not to hurt them.” Dunn Daily Record Story
