The White County Board of Education unanimously approved snow pay for part-time school employees at Thursday’s board meeting.
Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the new inclement weather wage assistance benefit is an effort to mitigate the financial impact on non-salaried employees during the winter months. Under the new procedure, Dronebarger said teachers assistants, school nurses, custodians and cafeteria workers will now get compensated during snow days based on rates set by unemployment benefits.
“We have people who do have work to do on snow days, and so it’s always been a dilemma that we can’t pay those people who aren’t working when we’re paying people that are on those days,” Dronebarger said.
Dronebarger said it would be less than the full rate of pay for the day, but more than these workers would have received in the past.
“So in the end, this is gonna mean more money for them than it did under the old system,” Dronebarger said. “We’re just doing it in, in a more correct bookkeeping procedure.”
Dronebarger said the school originally banked five snow days for non-salary employees by allowing them to work 7.25-hour shifts to account for any bad weather days. But under the new policy, hourly employees will essentially receive unemployment protections from the school district.
“Under unemployment, the days have to be consecutive, and they’re not,” Dronebarger said. “So we’re instituting our own local unemployment benefit just to these positions to try and help them. They’re being penalized once because there’s no work for them to do when it snowed, so we don’t want to penalize them again because those days aren’t consecutive.”
District 5 Board Member, Jayson McDonald, voted to approve the snow day pay, but went a step further, voicing the need for livable wages for all the district’s workers, not just hourly employees.
“The rate of pay is not where it needs to be,” McDonald said. “And I think I made that statement earlier. You know, our legislature has included too many things on education, and I think we need to pay these folks a living wage. Right now I don’t think they’re making a living wage.”
Dronebarger said the new payment policy will not affect the yearly budget.
“It’d be money that we wouldn’t have spent otherwise, but it was money that was budgeted and is there,” Dronebarger said.
In other business, Randy Alley, Maintenance and Transportation Supervisor, said the school completed construction of the tennis court bathrooms and spent nearly $10,000 less than they expected. Through fundraising, the tennis team bought new windscreens for the pavilion that “enhance the overall appearance of the campus,” according to Student Representative Isabella Sackett.
Dronebarger approved repairs at Doyle Elementary and the refurbishments will be finished by the end of the school year. Dronebarger said the construction would not affect TCAP testing.
The board voted to eliminate the use of pennies in cash transactions by rounding to the nearest five cents, but will still accept pennies as legal tender.
The board also approved an agreement with STAR Physical Therapy to provide an athletic trainer for school sporting events.
