By Meredith Shimer
Published: May. 17, 2024 at 2:33 AM CDT
MUNFORDVILLE, Ky. (WBKO) - Hart County teachers are now anticipating an amendment to the recently approved budget for the 2024-2025 school year, which shows them getting a 1% raise.
After Monday night’s meeting, where dozens of teachers, staff, and students raised their voices to the Board of Education, the board members said they would take a look at the budget, and try to find any extra funds they could allocate towards staff raises. Since then, Superintendent Nathan Smith said he and Finance Director Chris Russell spent both days after the meeting looking at each budget item line by line.
“We are continuing to look at the budget. That’s the reason I wanted to take it off the agenda tonight,” he said during the meeting. “We are going to find some money. Can I give you a number tonight? No, I cannot. We do have on the agenda, tonight, to create a budget committee. This will be in place for next school year.”
Several people at Monday’s meeting expressed a desire for this budget committee. Smith said that with the extension they applied for, they must have the finalized budget within a few weeks. He warned that if they are able to give teachers a higher raise, next year’s budget will be much stricter than in the past.
Smith also provided the audience with several more details on how the financial situation came to be. He discussed the great amounts of borrowing the district has been forced to do. With a $400,000 contingency budget for planned but unexpected expenses, they have had to borrow money because of instances such as multiple HVAC unit failures and bi-weekly payrolls of $650,000. He said they need to build a healthier contingency for this next school year.
“We hear you, and we are going to try to do the best we can,” Smith said. “When we do this, the budget is going to be tight. I want my administrators to know this. We’re finding every dollar we can get, and we’re trying our best to help.”
Carrie Murray, library media specialist and organizer of the Hart County Teachers United group, said that finding the money is not necessarily the issue. She received a call from a member of the Kentucky Senate on behalf of Senator David Givens, and they clarified some confusion.
“The main thing that stood out to me was all of that money that was put into the education and increases this year was [meant] for teacher retention,” Murray said. “He said that all districts should give no less than a 5% raise, at minimum, this year and next. So we’re asking for 10%, whether it’s five this year and five next. That’s not too much to ask, and Hart County has the money, so I hope that our district can go back and look at that.”
During the meeting, Murray, along with other teachers and parents, expressed their frustration with pleas. The audience filled the auditorium, many of them holding 8x11 signs with the phrase, “We are worth it!” One sign read, “We love our teachers.”
Two of those educators in the audience were science teachers Katie Moss and Teresa Robertson. They are passionate about bringing fair pay to the staff in order to keep Hart County Schools competitive and high-quality.
“There are a lot of people that work in our schools that love the children, they love the jobs they do, they’re here every day just as much as we are, and they’re paid at such a minimal rate that they really deserve an increase in pay,” Robertson said. “And that’s what we’re fighting for.”
“For not just us, everybody, because we are worth it,” Moss said.
For them, one of the main issues with the low raise was how it seemed to reflect the district’s outlook on their staff.
“The 1% raise really fed into how underappreciated the workers in this district do feel, and I think that exemplified what’s going on,” Robertson said.
They mentioned how the raise would not help cover the extra costs teachers pay out of their own pocket to buy classroom materials. Moreso, they also mentioned that are especially “working harder with less pay” since there has been an influx of teacher vacancies, so they cover more shifts.
Robertson lives in Green County, where their Board recently approved a 12.5% raise for all classified staff. She said that while she is sticking with her Hart County family of 20 years, Green County’s raise really makes her think.
And while both teachers feel that this disagreement with the school district has caused unwanted adversary, they said they cannot be complacent any longer.
“It’s almost like leaving a dollar on the table after you’ve been served by a fantastic waitress,” Moss said. “My grandmother always said, ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us,’ and I don’t want this to be them and us… we’re more than that. Our kids are more than that.”
One parent during the meeting, Rebecca Riggs, aired her support for these teachers.
“Buildings are just shells, our teachers are the hearts of these students,” she said. “Give them the raise that they have been requesting because our children are depending on these teachers, and so are we as parents of Hart County.”
During the meeting, board member Sonya Gedda expressed her frustrations with the expectation of reviewing and approving a budget in a 24-hour-or-less time frame.
“Our budget is so out of whack. I want you to know, I personally do not know why and how it even got that way or how to fix it,” she said. “You see other districts and what they are doing. Now my question is, ‘Why can others do it but we cannot?’”
Smith said that once the budget is finalized, they will call another meeting.
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