DeKalb County School District employees who did not receive expected pay bumps as part of a new salary schedule should receive new rates of pay — and retroactive pay — by the end of March.
According to a special called meeting agenda set for Wednesday, the DeKalb County Board of Education is expected to vote on changes to several parts of the salary schedule rolled out last month, where several employees received much smaller raises than expected, to the tune of a couple pennies a paycheck in some cases.
District officials have not yet responded to questions about what the planned fixes include.
According to a meeting agenda item, staffers who received incorrect raises will be compensated retroactively to Jan. 1, the new salary schedule’s effective date.
Superintendent Steve Green said flawed calculations were found in the new schedule, discovered after a team review that followed emails to district employees alerting them to their new rates of pay.
“We found some egregious errors and want to make sure the raises are correct,” he said. “We need to recalculate the step process for everybody. We need to go in and correct the whole thing. We found some flaws in the algorithm.”
Teachers, who were expected to benefit greatly to changes in the district's latest effort to make sure it was being competitive while seeking new educators, have taken to social media to voice their frustrations after receiving far less on paychecks this week than was advertised. Many feel the district's new salary structure included significant raises for administrators — including premium pay for regional superintendents with advanced degrees — while neglecting those at the front of classrooms.
The district already has seen some changes since the schedule rolled out last month, including the departure of its fourth human resources leader since late 2015. Bernice Gregory said her departure was unrelated to the salary schedule, though.
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