School District Passes $638 Million Budget With No Teacher Raises

September 17, 2008

The Escambia County School District approved a $638 million budget for next year, $13 million less than last year.

A majority of the savings will come from bus route changes and school closures. About $2.5 million was cut from the budget by closing Wedgewood  and Brown Barge middle schools in the Pensacola area last year. Another $1.2 million in savings was from the consolidation of school bus routes and school start time changes this year.  The closure of  Carver/Century K-8 School is expected to save another $680,000 a year, if the school board votes to close that North Escambia School.

Teachers did not get the news they wanted Tuesday night…there’s no money in the budget for teacher raises. That’s unlike last year, when teachers received an eight percent raise. The district’s total cost for teachers and their benefits is about a quarter billion dollars.

The budget includes $163 million for capital outlay projects…renovation and construction projects.

Comments

2 Responses to “School District Passes $638 Million Budget With No Teacher Raises”

  1. taxpayer on September 22nd, 2008 9:35 am

    Thank the people who voted to cut taxes…the avg. saving of around $100.00 per house really help them big-time, where did they think most of the School funds came from? I see a long short-fall coming for “ALL” District employees,

  2. Kevin Bethea on September 17th, 2008 9:03 pm

    Let’s see, they tell teachers how and when to do their jobs, preach nothing but FCAT all year long, and then still won’t compensate them. The amount of money that teachers spend out of their pockets to enhance the lives of our children should be taken into consideration. I have never had a teacher that did not spend some of their own money to help their students. This is typical for this area; gas, food, clothing, housing, school suplies and everything else keeps going up. Except for the wages. These teachers hold the key to the future of this county, they need to be awarded for educating our future tax payers. If the county would stop catering soley to tourism, and work to get some industry here, there would be more tax money around to pay teachers

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News