Horry County Schools’ budget addresses security needs, pay raises

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - Horry County School board members are still in the stage of tweaking the budget for the upcoming year before it is final, and Monday night, they threw out possible changes.

Some of the items they talked about the most were potential teacher pay raises and security measures.

This is the second year in a row that the district’s budget has surpassed $1 billion.

District spokesperson Lisa Bourcier tells WMBF News there has been a lot more debate amongst board members about this year’s budget than last year’s, some of it centered around hiring more school security officers.

“They would go through the searches, they would handle that throughout the entire day and be stationed at the front office, so there’s a dollar amount to that,” said Bourcier. “Then, we are looking at doing full searches of all students and we have our staff that helps us do that, so we are looking at providing a stipend for those staff members.”

The proposed budget accounts for more security officers in all schools, including elementary schools, which board member Howard Barnard questioned.

“I just want the staff to come back and justify those positions,” said Barnard. “That’s a lot of money when you put those elementary positions in. It wasn’t that much money when we only did middle and high school.”

Another big talker on Monday night was salaries.

Currently, the budget includes a 2% salary increase for all district employees. It also has a $1,000 increase to teacher salary schedules, as well as a 3% increase for non-teachers.

“I would love to see an increase to $1,500 for the teachers, one of these scenarios, and then a scenario for a $2,000 increase,” said board member Shanda Allen.

Now, board members like Allen and Barnard are asking district staff what can possibly be cut out to give teachers more of a boost.

“As we’ve seen, every dollar counts, and if we can find our extra money, we can give our teachers a pay raise,” said Barnard.

Bourcier said it is guaranteed that there will be no tax increases with this budget.

The first vote on the budget will be on June 10, with a final vote on June 17.

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