The Christian County School Board approved a salary schedule at Thursday nights meeting, along with the evaluation for the superintendent.
This year’s salary schedule did include a few changes, including changing several classified employees to a full eight hours per day of work—that includes media technicians, instructional assistants, clerical assistants and more, and eliminates the old starting hour rate at level one of $9.96 to the new hourly rate of $10.98.
Director of Finance Jessica Darnell says the schedule also contains a $1,000 stipend for all full-time employees, to be distributed in a one-time payment.
It also includes the elimination of the high school consolidation coordinator position, removes the stipend of the special education department head, and gives raises to aftercare workers. The salary schedule was approved unanimously by the board.
The board presented and approved their evaluation of Superintendent Chris Bentzel, with Board Chair Tom Bell saying he received an ‘exemplary’ designation on all standards. He says they find that Bentzel has a student-first mentality and is focused on programs and safety.
The board says they would like for Superintendent Bentzel to focus on being data-driven in the future where it comes to instruction and educational pathways, be a driving force behind new initiatives and increase recruitment and retention of personnel.
In other action, the board approved the tentative budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2023-2024, with the final working budget to be presented in September. This budget does include the loss of ESSER funding on many items, putting those items back into the general fund, and it reflects a likely decrease in SEEK funding of about $3 million.