Warren Schools Increase Starting Pay By Almost $7K In New Budget

Starting pay for Warren County teachers projected to increase by some $7,000 in the new fiscal year budget.

Director Grant Swallows said employee compensation was one of the main focuses during budget discussions. He said in addition to the base increase, the school board is also working to clean up the salary schedule.

“Our salary schedules now had a step raise included every year for an employee,” Swallows said. “But those step raises were different, you might get $500 one year, $1,000 the next year, or $75 the next year. So we really worked on trying to clean that up and make that standard across the board.”

Swallows said certified employees will now get a $400 step raise every year from the time they start in the system until year 31. He said it has been a lot of work trying to get the schedule cleaned up.

Swallows said not only did they fix the salary schedule for certified employees, but for classified employees as well because the district was “lagging behind.” For example, he said custodians had a starting salary of just under $9 an hour.

“But that’s not competitive with jobs in our town or our county, so we felt like we really needed to get competitive there, raising that to a starting pay of $11 an hour.” Swallows said. “So it’s the times we’re in, but most importantly we want to tell our employees how much we value them and reward them for their hard work and also make ourselves competitive with the districts around us.”

Swallows said they were able to achieve this through the new TISA funding model. He said they are proud of the work they were able to achieve for their employees.