YORK COUNTY — After more than a year of fiscal belt tightening, both full and part-time employees of the York County School Division (YCSD) will be seeing a bonus of a few hundred dollars in their May paychecks.
“It has been a priority of both the superintendent and the school board to acknowledge the dedication of the teachers and staff,” YCSD Chief Financial Officer Bill Bowen said. “They particularly want to acknowledge the substitute teachers being able to transition from teaching face to face in the classroom to having to engage in a virtual setting.”
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020, YCSD employees were set to receive a 2 percent raise before it was retracted at the beginning of the shutdown.
While other districts in the Commonwealth were quicker to give out bonuses and raises, YCSD officials were more hesitant.
“We took a more fiscally conservative approach,” Bowen said. “We held off on the raise because there was not going to be any ongoing funding.”
Another financial concern was the fact that, since the beginning of the shutdown, the number of enrolled students in the county dropped by 800. Bowen said that the division waited until the governor released the state budget which stated that school districts were to not be held accountable for the decrease in enrollment. Had the budget not stated that, state funding to York and other counties could have decreased.
While the bonus is a temporary fix for educators and faculty, YCSD is looking to get back on track with salaries. Going forward, Bowen said that YCSD employees are slated to get a 5 percent raise in 2022, with 3 percent coming in July and 2 percent in December.
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