The White County Board of Education revised the county’s pay scale, resolving a calculation error that placed master’s degree salaries below state-mandated minimums.
Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the discrepancy was identified through a differentiated pay report submitted to the state. The correction involves increasing the starting salary for the master’s degree category by one step raise and applying that adjustment across the entire pay scale for those educators.
“Had I known that figure at that time, I would have budgeted that at the time that we did this pay scale,” Dronebarger said. “That was my error not having that minimum set, but that just slipped through my fingers at that point to make sure that minimum was established.”
Dronebarger said the adjustment affects 121 active classroom teachers within the district. Dronebarger said the change will result in a monthly budget increase of $9,555.83, totaling approximately $114,670 annually.
“We’ll look at the end of the year budget,” Dronebarger said. “Hope we’re normally net positive and well in the green, and we would take that out of that overage at that point to make that difference up.”
Dronebarger said the change will directly apply to current, in-classroom teachers with a master’s-level education. Dronebarger said this adjustment will not change other district pay scales, including those for supervisors.
