School board approves hazard pay for all employees

The county School Board voted Nov.18 to award full- and part-time staff with a one-time hazard stipend to reward them for going “beyond their regular duties and responsibilities” during the coronavirus pandemic.

The school system has 301 full-time employees who will be awarded $1,000 apiece. There are 55 part-time employees, and of those, part-time teachers will be awarded $600. All other part-time school employees will receive $350.

It will be recognized that some employees have more than one job with the school system and should receive 100 percent of the stipend for their primary job and 50 percent for the secondary.

The total package will cost $350,428, with $343,875 coming from federal coronavirus relief funds. The funds will be awarded to teachers in a secondary deposit during December.

School board member Jamie Hackney began discussions to raise the amount that other part-time employees would be paid to $500. This would add an additional $7,200 to the original package cost. Hackney and the other school board members requested they look into getting the additional $13,753 reimbursed from federal CARES Act funds.

The vote for the originally presented amounts passed unanimously, with the caveat that Superintendent Haydee Robinson and her team investigate the possibility of increasing the stipend for other part-time staff.