School board approves more employee incentives

In an ongoing effort to attract and retain quality staff across the school district, school board members approved new incentives during last week’s meeting.

For the last four years, the Lincoln County School District has given raises to both certified and qualified staff to help make wages more competitive and comparable to surrounding areas.

Last Thursday, the board approved two more incentives to help meet the goal of recruiting and keeping quality staff members.

The district approved a three-percent match for pre-tax annuity (401k, 403b and 457b) contributions by participants with approved providers.

“There will be a stipulation that they must finish that year of that contract, be hired for the next year, and then that three-percent match would be given,” Superintendent Bruce Smith said during the meeting.

Board member Tyler McGuffey said it shows an investment in Lincoln County staff.

“I think it’s great,” he said.

The board also approved an additional personal day for all employees.

During the previous working meeting, board members reviewed the statistics regarding the use of personal days during the 2023-24 school year.

Below are the number of employees who used personal days this school year:

• .25 day – 4 employees
• .50 day – 9 employees
• .75 day – 4 employees
• day – 108 employees
• 1.25 day – 7.5 employees
• 1.5 day – 29.5 employees
• 1.75 day – 2 employees
• 2 days –  318 employees

“By regulation you can go up to three days,” Smith said. “Currently, we have two personal days.”

Chairman Etta Meek said she thinks the staff will love an additional personal day.

“This gives your staff breathing room to feel like they can take their personal day,” McGuffey said. “…and I think it also recognizes that, you know, we deal with a lot of trauma in the schools that’s hard to carry on us, whether you’re driving the bus or you’re in the classroom or you’re in the office, no matter what, so I think this show we’re investing in our people and we want them to take the time for their mental health to be able to do a job that is, quite frankly, rather tough. I think this is a really good thing.”

The board approved the additional day to bring the total to three personal days for all staff.

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