The El Dorado School Board has revised its salary schedule for the 2023/2024 school year, replacing a previously approved version that did not provide step increases for years of service or attainment of further education.
On April 10, the School Board approved a step-less salary schedule that laid out a starting pay of $50,000 for every teacher in the district and provided $2,000 raises for any teacher making more than $48,000.
The starting pay and raises were both provisions of the Arkansas LEARNS Act, which was signed on March 8 by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
School Board member Wayne Gibson in April criticized the one-size-fits-all nature of the new pay schedule, saying he thought it unfair that veteran teachers would not be rewarded for their time in the classroom. Superintendent Jim Tucker said he has heard the same from teachers, and hoped to present a salary schedule with steps some time in the future.
It took less than a month for that new salary schedule to be introduced. The School Board was called for a special meeting on May 2, when the new schedule was unanimously approved.
The new salary schedule includes starts teachers at a base salary of $50,000 and tops out at $54,040 for a teacher with 17 years of experience in the El Dorado School District and an advanced degree. A teacher with the same amount of experience without an advanced degree can make up to $52,590, according to the new schedule.
Shelley Pruitt, chief financial officer at the ESD, said the cost for implementing the new schedule will be $2,330,956.76. The state is covering $2,104,047, leaving the ESD to cover the balance of $226,909.76.
The district will also raise the pay of classified staff members by $1 an hour, which Pruitt said would cost the district $324,707.36. She explained that foundation funding provided by the state can go toward paying staff, but the ESD employs more people in some categories than the funding rules allow, since some of the foundation funding must go toward other areas.
"We are required to spend a certain amount of foundation funding in areas that are not salaries and benefits, so it's not an apples to apples dollar comparison," she said in an email. "There are very few districts who can spend their funds exactly as the matrix funds them because there are few that mirror the district their funding is based on."
The salary schedule used in the ESD during the 2022/2023 school year included 21 steps, with a range that started at $40,000 and topped out at $54,175.
Tucker said he's happy about the new salary schedule.
"We are happy that we were able to provide more than the governor provided for," he said on Friday. "We will take a look at the schedule each year to see if we can improve on it.