DeKalb Schools Proposed Budget Includes Focus On Employee Raises

Employee raises the focus for the DeKalb County School System’s new budget.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said that while the raises might not be as large as last year’s, they wanted to do something to make sure their employees were taken care of.

The budget includes a proposed $2,000 increase for certified personnel and $1,000 increase for non-certified personnel.

“I think it’s a thing that our employees deserve,” Cripps said. “And so we want to keep the trend going and keep pushing the limits for our staff.”

Cripps said that while this year’s budget dips more than usual into the system’s reserve funds, they are still sitting at a healthy balance. He said that inflation and employee benefits have the system absorbing more costs than usual.

Cripps said that employee benefits had gone up an aggregate of 6.1 percent over the last year. He said that they have tried to accommodate the increase and gas prices as well. Cripps said that the system’s gas bill had almost doubled from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

“So we put in a little more for gas,” Cripps said. “Parts, tires, and just oil to change the oil in the engines all that stuff has gone up. And right now it’s a guess because you don’t know when the inflation is going to end. We don’t like to go into our fund balance but the unknown right now is something that is hard to predict.”

Cripps said that the budget will go before the County Commission for approval on Tuesday.