Average salary is $53,730 a year
The St. Charles Parish School Board voted last week to award one-time bonuses to all full-time and permanent part-time employees.
These payments will bring the average salary to $53,730 in St. Charles, far above the state average of about $47,600.
The payments will be awarded on Oct. 20 to all employees who are hired as of Oct. 6. Full-time employees will receive $1,500 and permanent part-time employees will receive $500.
The payments will cost the district $3.1 million, which will come out of the general fund.
Jim Melohn, the district’s chief financial and administrative officer, said that it is important for the schools to stay in the top five as far as salaries statewide.
“To attract the best and brightest teachers, you have to be competitive on salaries,” Melohn said. “It’s the only way we will be able to attract them.”
Following the payments, the district estimates that it will be No. 2 in the state for employee salaries this year, up from No. 7 last year. Iberville Parish would be the only parish paying their employees more than St. Charles.
Melohn said that the last time employees received a pay raise locally was in October 2007.
The district will not know its official ranking until the end of the 2010-2011 school year.
“The ranking is a projection based on the state’s information that was put out from the Louisiana Department of Education for fiscal year 2010,” Melohn said.
The district’s 2011 budget project $117,179,700 in revenues and $120,782,430 in expenditures. Despite that, the general fund is expected to contain $19,434,539 at the end of this year thanks to excess from previous years.
Melohn credits the surplus funds to good years of tax collections and good management by the school district and School Board.
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