Cyndi Mesimer, finance officer for Sampson County Schools, talks to members of the county Board of Education Tuesday night about the staff supplement changes.
By Alyssa Bergey
abergey@www.clintonnc.com
The Sampson County Board of Education meeting Tuesday night ended with a few more questions than it began with, and very few items on the agenda actually received approval despite a lengthy hour-and-a-half closed door meeting to discuss a student matter and personnel.
The board did approve a long list of contract renewals, including that of several assistant principals and central office personnel.
But the first item on the agenda, that of changing the way staff supplements are paid, left the board with more questions and no resolution.
At the work session on May 21, it was requested that the board change supplements so that all — those to certified and non-certified — were paid based on actual salary instead of a teacher pay scale. Members agreed to put the item on the agenda for the May 28 meeting, but that they would need to see the updated numbers for the total cost of such a change.
Cyndi Mesimer, finance officer for Sampson County Schools, brought the total cost to the board at Tuesday night’s meeting, saying it would take $201,000 to pay for all the supplements with this change.
“As I told you last week, the difference in that would be $80,000. What you asked me to do was give you some additional numbers based on what the teacher suspected salary increases would be, and so I’ve done that. And it looks like, along with what the proposed raises are so far, supplements would increase about $201,000,” Mesimer said.
There was a moment of silence as the board looked at the information provided and took in what Mesimer said, but it was broken by board Chairman Daryll Warren who asked where they would get the money to pay for the increase.
Mesimer explained that the funds would be paid the same way they always were — through state funding, some federal dollars, if the position was hired at a federal level, and the remainder would be paid through local funds. This breakdown of the payout led to even more questions from the board, namely how much of the local fund was used for staff supplements.
“We have to be very careful,” Mesimer acknowledged. “At the end, when I maximize the funds, I do a calculation of the O71 teacher supplement that the state gives, I have to do a calculation to make sure that we’re not supplying out of the O31 money. But that O31 money is very flexible, and so we’ve always used it to pay and pick up some of that local supplement fee. We just have to be careful to stay within the threshold.”
Mesimer said the calculation is usually done at the end of June, but that paying for staff supplements through the local funding has also already been budgeted.
That remark brought up the next question from board member Sonya Powell — what is the limit to the local funding?
Mesimer said she had not completed budgeting for the local funding due to only having an estimated amount of how much they would be given. The Sampson County Board of Commissioners has not finalized its 2024-25 budget, therefore the school system must wait on final approval before knowing exactly how much the county will allocate.
It was at this point that Mesimer stressed that changing the way supplements are paid was not her idea, but something that has been brought up to her by multiple members of staff. She said there were people who came to her and said that their supplement didn’t amount to what they thought it would because when they were hired it was said it would be 7.5 percent of their salary.
“We’ve had questions in the past when people have called that there’s something missing inside,” she said. “‘Well, mine’s not working out. I was told when I was going to be hired it was going to be at the top of seven percent,’ and then the 7.5 percent that we did last year. And so, then when they start doing the math, they’re like, ‘I want to get paid [x amount], but I thought I was going to be paid [x amount].’”
Sampson County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jamie King brought up that last year the 7.5 percent supplement was only agreed to for one year, which meant the board had to vote on whether to keep it at 7.5 percent or bring it back down to 7 percent.
After that observation, Powell said she didn’t believe the item on the agenda was correct. She said it was only asking if they would change the supplement to be paid based on actual salary instead of a teacher pay scale, but now they would also have to vote on whether they would keep the supplements at 7.5 percent or drop it back down to 7 percent.
Warren then pointed out that the numbers that Mesimer had given the board were based on a supplement of 7.5 percent, and they would need to see numbers based on 7 percent, too if they wanted to be able to vote on which percentage to use for the coming school year.
Due to the unanswered questions and the confusion on what the board was voting on, it was decided that this matter would be tabled until fall. Both the board and Mesimer agreed that they would be able to have a more accurate representation of the numbers that way and time to decide on what to do.
Only one other item was tabled until the board’s next meeting, which was implementing a new accounting system. Board member Kim Schmidlin thought it would be best to get a full demonstration of the system before implementing it.
The board approved all of the consent items on the agenda and the continuing budget for the 2024-25 school year.