The Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education unanimously approved a 4% salary increase for all full-time staff on Thursday. The increase was also based on the worker’s length of service with the district. The raises will take effect at the beginning of next school year.
Exact salary figures for the next year were not readily available, but Covington Schools Superintendent Alvin Garrison said that “for most of our employees, they would get about a 5.9% to 6% salary increase.”
Garrison and board members were broadly pleased with the increases, but they also discussed whether they should continue to give universal raises to all full-time employees or be more deliberate in how they distribute raises in the future.
Board member Kareem Simpson said that it might be better in the future to zero in on specific positions for raises. He argued this could make the district more competitive overall and more likely to attract qualified job applicants.
“Once we start to become competitive then we have to start raising salaries competitively,” Simpson said.
Not everyone agreed, though. Board member Glenda Huff said that across-the-board raises would be better for overall district morale.
“If not all get the raise, then not all will feel supported and appreciated,” Huff said.
Board President Tom Haggard said he was opposed to the idea of a universal raise in the early stages of the district’s budget conversations but felt such increases were feasible in the district’s current financial situation. Still, he wasn’t sure it was sustainable in the long run.
“I would agree with Mr. Simpson that we have to start looking at the salary schedule position by position to make sure we are competitive,” Haggard said, “because just giving an across-the-board raise doesn’t mean we are competitive in salaries for bus drivers. Or maybe we’re not competitive for the salaries for [instructional assistants] because we’re not looking at where they are compared to everybody else in the region.”
The issue was not settled at Thursday’s meeting, but it dovetailed with conversations about educational sector pay that have occurred for a long time, especially as it relates to teachers. The concern is that higher salaries in other districts, particularly in Cincinnati, might draw away qualified teachers from the Northern Kentucky region. Similar conversations have occurred in relation to police officers and firefighters.
Teacher salaries at all districts have a wide range of pay levels, depending on the teacher’s credentials, experience level, and the amount of time they’ve worked with a district. Median teacher salaries for Covington schools for this school year approach the median salary levels for other public school systems in Kenton County, which hover around $60,000 a year. The median salary for a teacher in Cincinnati Public Schools, however, is considerably higher at about $87,000 a year. A new teacher with less than a year of experience could expect to take home about $44,000 working in Covington schools this school year.
Moreover, there has been concern about whether teachers and other historically middle-class professions could keep up with broader inflationary trends as well as the region's housing shortage. A housing study from the Northern Kentucky Area Development District from last year, for instance, argued that a teacher making industry median wages could only afford about 25% of the region's available rental housing and only about 15% of owned housing units.
Haggard said that he wanted to consider the topic more holistically as the district prepared its upcoming budget.
Garrison, for his own part, thanked the board for their work in supporting the district's staff.
"Over the last three years, I would put this board up against pretty much any board in the state with trying to support our faculty and staff," Garrison said.
The next meeting of the Covington Independent Schools Board of Education will take place on May 16, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the district's central office of East 7th Street.