Wake approves $3,750 bonuses for employees, higher substitute pay

The bonuses are contingent on North Carolina Department of Public Instruction approval for using some of the funds being used.

The board approved the bonuses after many cafeteria workers called in sick Tuesday, in protest of low pay; they are among the district’s lowest paid employees.

Those bonuses aren’t enough for many employees, who have asked for higher wages and salaries and pay for extra work because of employee shortages.

“Why aren’t you making every effort to improve employee retention?“ Ana Stratis, a child nutrition services worker asked the board.

The district is paying for the bonuses using one-time federal COVID-19 stimulus money, totaling about one-fifth of the money the district received and more than a quarter of the money it has left. The rest of the stimulus funds are already committed under a plan approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The funds last through Sept. 30, 2024.

The bonuses will be paid out in three equal installments across two school years in 2022. Part-time employees will get pro-rated amounts less than the $1,250 installments. About 200 employees working about one day per week will not be eligible.

The board also approved increasing pay, permanently, for substitute teachers by $24 or $27 per day, depending on whether the substitute is also a certified teacher. That won’t come from federal stimulus money and is not contingent on DPI approval. It will cost about $2.2 million for the rest of this school year, and the district will have to appropriate more money for substitutes in the future budgets, which are ultimately set by county commissioners.

That increase is effective Nov. 18.

The board approved both measures without opposition.

Board members have said they want to provide permanent pay raises but have cited a lack of permanent funding to do so. Board Member Jim Martin has suggested funding them with temporary money and then forcing the state or county to decide whether to fund or not fund continuing the raises.

Board Member Christine Kushner said she didn’t see how raises could be afforded without help from the state.

She said she hopes a Superior Court judge’s efforts to force the state to fund two years of a plan to overhaul education funding will succeed. That plan is a part of the 27-year-old so-called Leandro lawsuit in which courts have found the state insufficiently funds education.

The changes come after the board raised entry level wages to $13 per hour, provided $1,250 bonuses for full-time employees and raised the local contribution to teacher salaries — primarily funded at the state level — by 1%. Signing bonuses for new bus drivers, special education teachers and instructional assistants approved earlier this fall haven’t necessarily resulted in fewer vacancies for those positions, according to data analyzed by WRAL News.

Stratis said she starts work at 6 a.m. and often stays until 5 p.m. She’s worked for the district for 15 years and earns just about $13 per hour. Staff shortages, late food delivery, last-minute menu substitutions and limited supplies have stressed her this year.

“Now when my coworkers ask me how I’m doing I say, ‘I’m surviving,’” Stratis said. She wants $17 per hour, $2,000 bonuses for new hires and pay for overtime.

On Tuesday night, speakers during the board’s public comment period mentioned affordability in Wake County as part of their struggle.

Zachary Grant Bess, a district teacher, said he can’t decide whether to stay in teacher based on cash bonuses.

“Even with my VA home loan I’m not seeing a realistic way where I can buy a home in Wake County or Durham,” he said.

The Wake County Public School System received $382.8 million from all three federal stimulus packages, according to data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. As of its Sept. 30 quarterly report to DPI, the district reported spending $64 million of those federal dollars, most of it ($38 million) occurring during the first three months of this fiscal year.

The retention bonuses, at a cost of $80.7 million, would constitute one-fifth of the district’s overall stimulus funding.

That’s also all that the district has left for which it hasn’t already committed spending, Neter said. About $12.7 million of that total cost is actually money already committed, and the district will have to ask DPI to approve the change in use from its stimulus spending plan DPI has already approved.

The district must, by federal law, set aside 20% of its funds from the third stimulus package for “learning recovery” — getting students back on track to where they were expected to be, without a pandemic.

That package totaled $223 million for the district, requiring $44.6 million for learning recovery. Those funds last through Sept. 30, 2024.

Neter said he doesn’t believe the stimulus money can be used toward base salary, or at least that DPI would approved it being used that way.

That’s why the district has opted for bonuses instead of pay raises while using the money. Additionally, he said, pay raises would cause the district to need more funding in future years to continue them, without reducing pay or other services.

Kristin Beller, president of the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators, told the board it seems like permanent pay raises could be covered by stimulus funds and urged the district to try.

Staff retention, she said, is about both pay and working conditions. Conditions are impacted by staffing levels, too.

“Bonuses are not going to attract the level of staffing that we need,” Beller said. “Permanent raises will.”

The proposed state budget from North Carolina House and Senate leaders, unveiled Monday, would provide some funding relief to the county, if signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper.

It would raise wages to $13 per hour for the first year of the budget — this year — and to $15 per hour next year.

If approved, the county would no longer have to fund the $13 per hour wage increase the board approved earlier this month.

It’s unclear what the impact of the Republican state budget compromise would be on “step compression,” which is the flattening of the pay scale by experience caused when entry level wages are increased but wages for more experienced people are not.

The budget would also provide some pay raises for teachers, which would adjust each step of the pay scale.

After the Wake County Board of Education approved raising entry level wages to $13 per hour earlier this month, about 3,500 employees now earn $13 per hour or more but less than $15 per hour.

Nationally certified teachers in Wake County earn $49,961.60 annually. That increases most years, up until the teachers reaches 31 years of experience, when salary tops out at $72,027.20.

Wake County has the highest average local teacher supplement, at $8,873 during the 2020-21 school year, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

The cost of living in Wake County has risen as growth has exploded.

Currently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator calls a “living wage” for an adult without children to be $16.32 per hour in Wake County. In a two-adult household with three children, in which both adults work, a “living wage” would be $28.67 per hour for each adult.

Beyond sharp housing price increases in the area, child care costs for working parents have also risen.

The Economic Policy Institute reports the average annual cost of infant care in the state is $9,480 — more than the cost of a year of in-state, four-year college tuition.