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STANFORD — To help close the gap between salaries of certain positions in Lincoln County to area school districts, the Lincoln County Board of Education approved the Phase I Salary Increase at its May 9 special called board meeting at the Stuart Underwood Auditorium.

The board approved the creation of a Salary Committee at its Jan. 10 meeting to review the salary schedules of Casey County, Garrard County, and Rockcastle County and compare those to Lincoln’s salary schedule. The committee averaged the salary of the three school districts (for each position) to determine the rate Lincoln would need to pay to move within 5 percent of the average.

Some Lincoln positions’ salaries fell far below surrounding districts and the Phase I Salary Increase is a way to address the largest salary gaps as identified by the Salary Committee.

Superintendent Michael Rowe explained that the salary increase is specific to job descriptions and years’ experience. Not all employees in a job description will receive a raise, just those with the years’ experience indicated below.

The total number of employees affected by the Phase I Salary Increase is 66 and the total cost is $43,161.

The salary increase ranges from a low of 0.47 percent for a vehicle mechanic II – CL 34 with four to nine years experience to a high of 15.15 percent for maintenance workers moving from CL30 to CL01 at year four. The old hourly rate for a vehicle mechanic II with four to nine years experience was $12.76. The new rate is $12.82. The old rate for maintenance workers moving from CL30 to CL01 with four to nine years experience was $13.39. The new rate is $15.78.

All of the maintenance workers moving from CL30 to CL01 with at least four years experience will receive double-digit percentage increases in their wages. Those with 10-14 years experience go from $13.72 an hour to $16.10 (14.78 percent), employees with 15-19 years experience a jump from $14.03 per hour to 16.42 (14.56 percent), those with 20-24 years move from $14.32 per hour to $16.71 (14.30 percent) and those with 25+ years move from $14.54 to 16.94 (14.17 percent).

Two other positions in the zero to three-years experience range saw a double-digit percentage increase, with the central office secretary/bookkeeper-CL09 position seeing a jump from $13.57 an hour to $15.17 or 10.55 percent and the computer maintenance technician I/II-CL19 position moving from $16.26 an hour to $18.88 or 13.83 percent.

BOARD APPROVES 1:1 NON-RESIDENT CONTRACTS

During Thursday’s meeting, the board also approved going to 1:1 Non-Resident Contracts when dealing with student exchanges with surrounding districts.

For years, many school districts have entered into open Non-Resident Contracts with surrounding districts since the number of students exchanged were approximately the same. However, when one district siphons off a significantly larger number of children, the other district takes a financial hit as the state funding known as Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, or SEEK, goes with the student.

This discrepancy in student exchanges has been costly for the Lincoln County school district of late, with the outflow of students from Lincoln to other districts, mainly Boyle County Schools and the Danville Independent Schools, costing the county thousands of dollars in SEEK funding at about $4,400 per student.

That discrepancy will be a thing of the past now as the new Non-Resident Contracts stipulate that students will be accepted/released between the districts at a ratio of 1:1.

For example, Lincoln County is currently out of balance with Boyle County, meaning that more students from Lincoln are attending Boyle than students from Boyle are attending Lincoln. The new contracts put a freeze on new releases to Boyle until the numbers level out. Names will be placed on waiting lists.

The board agreed to grandfather in all previously approved releases.