001did you give me okay okay so those are the three okay you give me that one but this is the blue one foreign so [Music] huh [Music] good morning how are you this morning foreign hmm um okay oh like to call this specially called meeting of the castle county board of education to order welcome our guest miss stanley is not here she had planned to be here virtually but she is out of town and the area she is in she cannot get any internet access so she will not be able to participate in the meeting that's part of your business um yes thank you for having this um holding the special call of meeting for the purpose of discussing uh staff supplements specifically our need to attract and retain certified staff all staff but you
002have in front of you three sheets of paper or three packets of paper one is our current personnel vacancies and you can see under um certified staff that there's great need and i've certainly been talking with other districts and other superintendents and this is not an isolated case it's just the nature of the beast right now is that staff is hard to find for various reasons and and because of that districts are making it very attractive for staff to come to them and the second packet i have is a packet that i'd like to thank miss mcgee for putting it together of what local districts are doing to attract staff specifically teachers uh to the area and you can see that um you know we've looked at signing bonuses the yearly supplements and additional incentives
003and uh we have i forget how many are here but it's all but just a few i think it was two perhaps two or three of the p-tech uh districts so you can see that you know we are up against uh districts that are paying quite a bit you know because we have zero supplement as you well know and uh you know if you look at the percentages they range from well they range from a flat fee and then they go up to uh 10 in one district is starting all the way up to uh 13.75 in one district for the years of service if you have a master's degree uh and it's all over the place but what we did see is a common factor is that the districts are offering something for their
004certified staff to stay in and many for their classified staff so we know that there's a need there and if you if you look at that and then compare it to our vacancies you know we're seeing that people are leaving and you know because of of the desire to have more money and i certainly understand that we have a lot of benefits in in the district we have a lot of great things that are happening but the bottom line is we need to be more competitive and so with that as you know in our esser grant funds that i've shared with you before that we received and were approved from the federal government and we did write in a two million dollar supplement over three years for teacher retention and turnover and so we have
005utilized that to put it in some various options but we also have utilized the need to amend to even increase that amount over three years and so what i'd like to do now is just go over some of the options that we've put together and then of course we can look in this uh chandler i'd like to acknowledge her for helping create these um these numbers and then of course mr trail for working on the the essence funds as well but to look at some different options and then if you prefer a different option than what's here then we can certainly calculate that as well so we have three options and then i know that uh i've been asked to just share what has been in the past for christmas bonuses so that's on the
006live page that's just sharing what you have you know provided in the past so option one only looks at certified supplements uh certified staff supplements and we are trying to move to a three-year commitment uh for a couple reasons one is as i've shared before it's very hard to attract staff if you're only saying next year or this year and sometimes we wouldn't know if it was written into the budget until after the fact of recruitment so we're trying to make it so that at least we have a few years and the reason three years is because that's when the escrow grant money should be uh utilized by or we lose it uh through september of 2024. so we've written in a three-year um possibility of the scenarios but the first one is based upon
007years of service in caswell county so that you have to retain there it's not just years of service but years of service for certified staff in caswell county and again that's tied to the teacher turnover rate and you can see based upon years of service then it goes up to from 4.25 to 7.5 percent uh and that utilizes the the line item of 2 million dollars it does uh take into account that every year there would be an increase in possible increase in the retirement rates and and other benefits and so we take into account that possibility as well and uh as you can see based upon that based upon our number of years of service of our current staff the average supplement would be about 2500 a year that is option one it only
008addresses certified staff option two again for three years this looks at um every employee in in the district uh i'd like to first call your attention down to the chart it still addresses not to exceed the 2 million that's written in the current ester grant it does lower the uh percentages for certified staff for the years of service it starts with the 3.25 all the way up to 6.25 for uh certified staff that are in the teaching position when i say certified staff i'd like to make certain that it's the certified staff that would have normally received a a bonus when we received it from the commissioners so it's all tied to teacher turnover in classroom working with students any staff that does not receive a bonus from that chart would then receive a thousand
009dollar full-time uh a thousand dollars for full-time employees if you were employed in caswell county on june 1st and still employed in september on september 30th and then if you're part-time you would receive a 500 uh dollar bonus and those two things together that way everyone receives something the only person that would not receive something is someone that's hired after june 1st that came in and was not a not a teacher i did that one for all for every employee plus the supplements okay so again we did talk about the both yes so i think when the last meeting the they i think they talk we're talking about the every staff getting a bonus and a supplement i think so this bonus is for every staff member okay the next option is the one we
010did my my misunderstanding on that one that's no problem but it still totals the two million dollars so there's nothing that's taken out other than what's in the s are already written into that grant so what you're saying there then is a teacher with three years of service in caswell county will get the 3.25 plus a thousand dollars if they were in caswell county and with three years they would have been june 1st september so yes yes we we have spoken about so many scenarios we've probably gone over ten different scenarios uh but we we gave the top three here at and i will share with you the third option is the most expensive but it's going to be my recommendation um and it says on here it's for two years and the reason it
011says two years i you know and i've just shared we want everything to be three years is because this would be contingent of us amending the esser grant for three years so that we can increase that two million and we know that we've seen some cushion areas that we've put in the esser grant that we can move around and up that amount we want to attract we want to attract we don't want to we want to keep who we have but we want to attract others as well so this option and again i can't stress enough how we have got to make sure that we've got strong teachers in in those classrooms this offers a percent supplement across the board to all certified staff that normally would have reason i put that caveat in there
012because you know there's so many different people that are teaching in different capacities but it's the teachers or the staff certified staff that would have gotten the commissioner's bonus when they gave the supplement to the to the teachers um it received this would allow a 10 supplement across the board to the certified staff that would have gotten that otherwise bonus we know for the next two years we can we can work it out as our current as our budget but to make it three years we would have to do an amended esr budget and get it approved we feel certain we have that possibility but i would have a a recommendation that we go with this one on in the contingency that we can move that other around so for a third year so we
013know we at least have two years but hopefully three and then take out a fund balance for then this year and the next two years two thousand dollars for every other certified staff that did not receive the ten percent and then uh one thousand for all classified and then half of that amount if they're part-time of whether they're certified or or classified and that would amount to approximately 000 a year coming out of fund balance for each of the next three years and yes that is more expensive we've got to attract staff we have to attract competitive uh pay and 10 is um a number that i i know will attract people here um and if we only do it for one year i think that that is a it's it's better than nothing but
014i don't think we're going to attract people we've got to show that we are putting forth um you know good faith that we know they're valued and and i know you value them as well but i think now with our esther money you know we have an opportunity to uh to attract teachers and then the um the last page as i mentioned before is just information for your purpose you would ask what we gave in the past for christmas bonus and that's you know if you went with option three as i just mentioned of course up to you but i would say there would be no need for the christmas funds because you would be giving them more than that in their yearly bonus and miss chandler has the numbers here and so if you
015feel like there's another scenario um that you would like run we can certainly do that as quickly as possible just so you'll have also as a reminder that we do have a current signing bonus of two thousand dollars for math science and ec certified teachers and we do have a thousand dollar signing bonus for any other certified staff that is currently underplayed we have budgeted uh forty to fifty thousand dollars for that every year this past year we utilize uh approximately twenty five thousand for that purpose of those signing bonuses so not quite a little over half of what was budgeted was utilized for signing bonuses so even though it's a good incentive to me that shows that it helps the ones that we have attract but we're not using we're not attracting as many
016as we should and option three would be ten percent across the board across the board not no experience or anything just 10 and it's for positions that would have received supplements in previous years when offered by the commissioners and the counselors you know curriculum coaches but then there's some that aren't directly related you know and so they would get the 2000 and it would be that would be across the board so everyone would get one of the two options let's battle a question first aim it did sign on bonus one of those funds out of two how much do you get entitled to each year uh about 200 some thousand give or take right okay that's right i don't think we get that much but we have carry over from year to year okay uh
017just a few comments uh i the last three or four days the word supplement has been on my computer i guess yours too from different people and i don't want that to get mixed up for the simple reason the commissioners did not give a supplement this is a way that we can do supplements bonus or whatever and i think i don't think the teachers need to understand that after this s money is gone there won't be no more money like that unless the commission's kicking in which i don't think that's going to happen there are different options that you can do as i said at the last meeting i believe that everybody should get a piece of the pie how big that slice is that's what we need to decide the bus drivers are important
018the cafeteria workers the teachers the counselors everybody the that's the funds uh we're in a unique situation to do something what i call good because these surrounding counties even with their answer funds they have local money that they can still do it that's why you see these different scenarios i saw where one count is often an 8 000 sign on bonus that's a lot of money you're not going to see that every year so the option i hope we can be in agreement i think that a person that has worked three years and a person that's worth 30 years there's a difference rather than giving a flat across the board supplement so i like option two i like option three but i just want to make sure that we take everybody into consideration the only
019thing i don't like dr carter is fun balance i don't want to go there too often if that money is gone we don't have money to replace it so that's the reason i'm leaning toward two but i could go three and i don't know how the other board members feel but i want to make sure everybody gets a piece of this pack that's it miss hudson um when we read some of our exit interviews uh they love the county they left because of funds of supplements so i'm in agreement with mr battle i i like everybody as he said getting a piece of the pie but it's very important um that we look at our teachers and as far as years of experience are concerned i can go either way on that one simply because
020a 20-year veteran is going to have a larger already salary than a three-year veteran and i see the younger people that have the ability to move the people that haven't been here that long they can move they can pick up easier and move to another location other than somebody that's been here for 25 years and established so i like that aspect of a certain percentage for everyone across the board but i do agree with mr battle the fund balance what which i we can't sustain continuing to take things out of fund balance um if we gave everybody a 9 i don't know i just don't like taking 350 000 over the next two years out of fund balance that that scares me [Applause] amy how much do we have in fundamentals is that the bottom
021two million very bottom of that oh okay i'm sorry of the option three i put it at the very bottom i certainly agree and and we know that if you do uh approve this at thr at the end of this third year there would need to be a a major discussion of how to continue or at what capacity and i know one of the commissioners when we you know discussed the esr funds they they did one did ask what are you going to do and i said well we're going to come to you and show you how hopefully this has made an impact on education with recruitment and but we did discuss the increase in pay of a first year versus a 30-year veteran of the money and how that 10 percent would be more
022and and so because i agree that they should have more but we're hoping that those that salary would take into account that difference and and yes that um you know 175 000 each year uh but i'm hoping over a three year and then a a reset of where we are and what's available and what the climate is and do we have hopefully we can attract students in as well so i mean there's a lot of things that could happen in three years for you to consider the question is can can this be held and sustainable for three years mrs garland i like the idea too of doing something for every employee in the county and i guess my question too is that if we you know other two options two and three which one would
023have the greatest impact of stopping that this fast lead of employees leaving and we heard you know about our fund dollars that don't want to use deplete those funds as well so um and that's my concern so a good one what had the greatest impact of of two and three of stopping the slow blade of employees leaving or you asked me to respond i mean i can make yeah um you know at this point i think we're in a position that we need to do something that is um is going to make a huge impact and i i truly feel option three is definitely the most expensive but it would certainly make the greatest impact uh of being competitive i mean i know uh it's a small rural district uh compared to the larger districts
024with the larger tax base it's very hard to be competitive and i know with esser funds that does allow us to be more competitive with the certified teaching staff and i am concerned with taking the amount from fund balance each year but if we limited the three years and then reset as we would with our esser and let's look again in two years to see where we are yeah i i still think they need a commitment of not just a year to year as well i i think they need the same value of we're committing to certified staff the option of ten percent over three years we need to also have a commitment for our other certified and are classified over the next so they can plan their future as well miss blackwell um dr
025connor what did you say that the amount that the that we have right now in fun no the amount for that we are using right now for recruiting we have um for about 40 to 45 45 and last year we spent um around 25 000 for those are for sign-on bonuses and who gets those sign-on bonuses the math science ec teachers give us two thousand dollar sign-on bonus this is for new teachers not currently and then any other certified teaching staff would get 1 000. now if we go with one of these options would that continue a good question okay i would suggest that it not continue because they're getting a 10 okay thank you for bringing that up i um i think we need to to help all employees first of all i don't
026like going into fund balance but we're in a crisis i'm willing to go into fund balance for this so that we can give the the staff you know that amount of money uh it's for two years and i mean that's my personal feeling though i i don't mind going into fund balance for this crisis situation is beggarly i like option two but but i like the christmas bonus separate i just i mean i like just to show them that we are listening and what they need and i think they kind of suck that christmas i just like it separate that's just my opinion [Music] ms blackwell i you know i do believe that i concur with the information about the fund violence i know when i first came i was asking about who we use
027gun violence for supplement and now we have an opportunity to make a difference we just as the chairman has said we are in a little crisis here because we have to compete and just like we didn't know about the pandemic anything can happen within a year or two years or whatever so we just need to be about making sure that we take care of what's happening now and we never know what what the future may hold so i think our staff deserves it yes they have worked hard they continue to work hard and we just you know the commissioners haven't given us the money for supplements in the in the past couple of years so we've done the best we could but we have an opportunity now i think we should go with three which
028gives them the most but we can go back and forth on this but a band-aid is a band-aid just give you an example if i'm working in caswell and you're going to do option three for me for three years but i can go next door to person and get that for 10 years i'm gonna weigh that okay or a gif or rockingham because they have continuing money that comes out from the county like i say we're doing a band-aid on a problem that we can fix right now how much we want to fix it is a different story um it's like if you give me something this year i'm expecting it next year in the year after that but if you don't have it to give to me then i've got to make a personal
029decision as to what i'm going to do so that's why we're losing so many people that's why we can't fill all these positions and i don't blame these young people i'm going to go where the dollar is that's common sense uh as i said in the beginning i can do two i can do three but the only thing about three is when you take that money out of fund balance you're not gonna be able to put it back nobody's gonna give you a windfall to put it back so i think that's the dilemma we have do we take it out or do we protect ourselves with option two so i can go either way but i think we need to be very careful about this [Music] any other questions or comments or discussion hey one
030more first battle and amy can uh on on option three who are the 25 certified employees for the two thousand dollar bonus they will be principals directors they're certified see that's the problem i got with that these people are paid more than the teachers and that's the reason i like to cross the board like a thousand dollars but you're putting them in one category then you're bumping them up to another category and you're talking about 25 people versus um so these are the high pay people anyway and they're already the principles are already getting supplement is that right can i share they do but that's part of their regular job i mean to me if someone gets a supplement and some of these supplements are nowhere close to what the other districts are giving and
031they still are doing the other i i hope that's my point i hope the board is not going to leave anyone out so that everyone gets one of the two because this year has been tough and everyone has gone above and beyond everyone in this district needs something above and beyond what they would have in a regular year i agree but it doesn't mean first of all they got to get 2 000 and teach it a gets a thousand that's what i'm saying no all teachers the teacher is option three um option three the the certified teachers would get the ten percent they would not get the bonus right so anybody that did not get the ten percent would get either two or one i'm sure it was everybody gets a thousand plus and then
032teachers would get a supplement on top right and you don't and you don't want to take the fun about it but if you're certified on option three you would get two thousand or you would get the ten percent [Music] any other discussion dr carter do you have a recommendation i do my recommendation is for option three um and with the understanding that for the third year of uh the ten percent supplement it would be contingent upon the approval of the amended esser grant funds and we don't see a problem with that but i just want to make sure that that's in the notes that it would be contingent upon that approval of an amended grant and that um option three of course it does take from fund balance uh for the next this this year
033and the next two years total of three years uh approximately 175 to cover for that um other staff bonus that is our recommendation we've heard the superintendent's recommendation is there a motion ms garland makes the motion is there a second as black will second some motion is there any discussion if not all in favor raise your hand oppose motion carries five to one i'd like to say thank you thank you this is will be um this will go across very well to our staff and show how much they are appreciated which i know you do anyway but i think it makes us very competitive and we will be getting this out quickly this um when you get it out i i think it would be good to make everyone very aware the differences classified who
034qualifies for what etcetera yeah i mean you can't you can't just say certified classified and i don't think in my opinion and some you know you've got some differences there who's going to get what it's almost like to need a little sheep and that's why we tried to say if you've gotten it before with the commissioners it would be the same people i don't think it means yes that's been a but when you want it to be paid out like i know when the commissioners gave us the 300 000 we paid half in december in half in may so they got a lot of they got the supplement in december kind of like a christmas thing so you could do it like that i mean i think that would be the best way to do
035it because option three says to be paid out in october so that's the before the bonus right so are you saying above and beyond that i mean what you just approved just making sure the supplements were paid out in december and june when the 300 000 given so you could do the bone i mean that bonus says october because that's the word and we got from i i just needed clarification are we talking about something above and beyond what you just approved or amending this i think it's just when the supplement is paid is what we're talking about the ten percent supplement okay not not the bone the way it's paid out has been varied by district two some added on to their monthly paycheck and then some pay it out in in sections yeah
036i like the way we've been doing it do half in december half at the end or may whatever that is like we did before so the bonus for the ten percent would not be paid out in october it would be paid out in december and not in monthly paychecks right i think that's best can i ask a question about taxes which is better or worse on an employee it doesn't matter it's all glad because it's because they're going to take out more taxes if it's one lump sum or half of them total as opposed to monthly i would think it all in the all in at the end it is going to end up it doesn't matter it's at all would it make a difference if we done it in octo i mean november instead
037of december i'm just thinking kind of for christmas i mean you know you get it in december i mean we already at christmas november i think would really help out i think the staff's gonna be so happy to know they're gonna get 10 i think whenever they get it but i agree that's a very good point ms blackwell how when when they are recruiting how is that going to be what will be said so it will be said won't we say it to recruit a new person well well we'll certainly get with miss mcgee but you know one of her big concerns is she's not able to put up the banners and to say yearly supplement yearly supplement now she can and once we talk to them you know we can discuss the you know
038the current configuration of how it is and how long it will last but at least we can attract them now to talk to them and bring them into the schools and be able to you know show them what's here you know in the past we haven't been able to get past the foot in the door because they don't want to look at a district that doesn't offer anything i want a clarification now the bonus is being paid in october right the two thousand dollar bonus and then what is it one thousand dollars yes whatever that's being paid in october and then we're going to do half of their 10 supplement in november and then half in may the other half in may okay do you see a problem with that mrs chandler november and may
039may is their last check anyway so it could all go in there if for example you know that can be prorated if someone decides or has to for some reason leaving february that's what we did uh well i think when this when we got the 300 000 from the commissioners if they weren't employed as of no like november 1st i know we put a date on it so if you were not here as of november 1st you didn't get it but if you came like september we prorated it um based on the months you were here right or if you didn't come till february and we were painting out may you would only get february march april may you wouldn't get the whole six months right right okay this happened go ahead dr pardon maybe
040because it could be a concern hopefully we wouldn't have any staff leave in december but we would be paying the supplement half i would i hope that we could pay august september october and november in november because it'd be paid in november otherwise we're paying them a supplement in december in november and if we have anybody leaving then we would have a difficult time getting that funds back those funds back i think that's why we did december because it was five and a half yeah and it was easier if you do the weight on the car saying you gotta do four months it's a harder calculation yeah well since we're giving the the in october right why don't we wait until december to give them the half the first half of their 10 supplements they
041get their check before christmas and money i i think that would be the best way to go yeah what this but clarify every staff member certified staff does not get 2 000 on this option it's only the ones who don't get the 10 percent okay so so if i'm a teacher i won't get the 2 in october if i'm a classroom teacher but i would be getting 10 percent and half of that in december right okay just make sure i just want to make sure that was because they're not those teachers or those staff members would not receive anything prior to december correct okay they know it's coming yes and they will know it's coming and the december paycheck is paid out early anyway yeah right right ms hudson we have june 1st june 1st
042on you know several places on this all classified employees employed as of june 1st are we sticking to that june 1st because we've got positions that are not fueled right now and it's july the board's decision it was a kind of a thank you for staying with castle county schools uh but now that it's not across the board you may want to alter that so that means if we hire someone now they would not get if they're not a classroom teacher if they're not a classified person repeat that again that's the way to cook it that's the way the cookie crumbles if i think that we need clarification so that everybody will understand it so repeat what you're saying please and if they're still employed all other staff bonus are options mr battle if they
043were not here june 1st it does not apply to them so you're saying if we recruit this is for certified people if we recruit certified people for this two thousand dollar bonus classified classified classified and then anyone any one of the certified that's not in that 10 supplement okay but it has to be they got june 1st on here so if they recruit anyone now that's certified they would not receive because we've gone past june first that's a good point if they would not receive the bonus but they would receive the 10 supplement was that correct yes but they wouldn't have been eligible for that okay they went here they're gonna get the supplements they weren't on the payroll they just weren't on the payroll and this is retention just want to get the clarification
044so your brand new bus drivers and brand new teacher assistants that have have not been hired yet will not get the [Music] thousand dollars two thousand dollars but they'll get the 10 percent okay they won't get to ten percent they won't no that's what that lady's singing then it's over well they made aware of that you know they're not going to get that stuff i mean you could always say that you know we're going to give a i mean when we talk to others from other districts i know miss mcgee did as well and we talked about signing bonuses and you can see that there's not as much signing bonuses in the districts and the reasoning she heard from any of the districts was that it would they didn't see an impact on that it
045is a good if that's all we have it was it was good to put it out there but that wasn't the number one recruiting tool it was the percentage of the amount you paid throughout the year and the different things that you know you now have in place for the next three years uh one of the things you could do though is you could say anyone who's hired you know as of june first would get a uh but it gets my understanding is the purpose of that bonus is to retain yes if they weren't working for us we're not retaining them right correct um you know i just think that's that's the way that is well that needs to be clearly explained to new hires too when other people say oh i got this and
046they didn't but if they say they'll get it yeah if they stay there we'll get it next time right is any other discussion or comments on that matter thank you in that case i need a motion that the casual county board of public education go into closed session for the purpose of considering a personnel action that involves an officer or employee of this board nc general statutes 143 318-1186 and for the purpose of discussing information that is privileged confidential or not a public record nc general statute 143 318 1181 and to confer with attorney do i have a motion mr garland has made the motion do i have a second so is there any