Portales schools may have money for teacher raises

PORTALES — If everything goes right, Portales Municipal Schools could give teachers pay raises in the 2018-19 school year, according to Superintendent Johnnie Cain.

Cain told school board members and school officials Friday during a special meeting that as long as the district’s unit value remains at its current standing for the upcoming school year (2017-18), the district might have enough money in the following year to give pay raises.

The New Mexico Public Education Department collects data regarding each of New Mexico’s 89 school districts — much of it based on student data — to determine the number of units per district. The unit value is basically determined by dividing the amount of money allocated (from the state) for education by the number of units of each district.

Cain and Finance Director Sarah Stubbs told board members the district’s unit value decreased 1.86 percent, instead of a drop expected to be as high as 5 percent due to a 2.28 percent drop in student count.

Total, the school will see a $324,000 gain in the next school year, according to Stubbs.

“Finally, we’re going up instead of going down,” she said.

As long as that remains, there could be extra funding to carry over into the 2018-19 school year, Cain said.

Stubbs said the unexpected increase stems from the State Equalization Guarantee (SEG) Distribution going up, as well as taxes, and indirect cost rates for the school went down.

Stubbs said the school’s operational budget will be 1.52 percent higher this next year, and the district hopes to end the next fiscal year with $441,380.

The bad news, Stubbs said, was the district will be receiving one third of the funding it did last year for instructional materials with a drop from $255,826 to $88,610.

Cain and Stubbs also said each employee for the district will be seeing a $280 increase in their take-home pay next year to match the increased cost of Blue Cross Blue Shield medical benefits, so employees will not be negatively impacted by the increase.

“Last year, everyone got hit on insurance, and we wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again,” Cain said, adding that cafeteria workers will also be seeing a 75 cent per hour raise.

Commissioners approved the 2017-18 fiscal year tentative budget and the 2017-18 salary schedule, as well as a budget adjustment of $39,306 for the current fiscal year, which Cain said was the final for state cuts for the year.

Stubbs said at the end of the meeting that the operational budget is complete and the entire budget is due to the PED on April 27.