Jacksonville district OKs bonus plans

JACKSONVILLE — Teachers and support staff in the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District are in line for some extra money in the coming weeks — as the result of a plan to draw bonuses from two pots of district funds.

The Jacksonville/ North Pulaski School Board earlier this month approved a recommendation from Superintendent Jeremy Owoh and his staff that the district add on to last school year’s covid-19 payment to employees to raise the payment for teachers to a total of $5,000 and to $2,500 for support staff.

The board, in a separate vote, also authorized $ 500 bonuses for all employees using money from the district’s regular operating fund rather than the federal American Rescue Plan covid-19 relief money.

Most of the money will be distributed by the end of December, Owoh said in an interview Nov. 11.

The unusual payment plan was developed in response to a call by Arkansas lawmakers last summer that school districts use their federal covid-19 funds to pay teacher bonuses of $5,000, Owoh said.

The Jacksonville district had already distributed special covid-19 payments to its employees in the 2021-22 school year at the rate of $11 a day for each day of the employee’s contracted work year.

The $11 a day was for the extra work that employees did during the global covid-19 pandemic, including remote instruction and sanitizing the learning spaces.

An employee who worked 190 days in a school year, for example, received $2,090.

The district had committed its remaining American Rescue Plan money to other expenses, Owoh said. Academic facilitators were hired, he said, and steps were taken to expand the district’s over-crowded middle school, leaving insufficient money to pay $5,000 bonuses this school year.

The board’s vote for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district will make up the difference between the $5,000 called for by the lawmakers and the $11 a day payment from last year so that the teachers will have a combined total bonus of $5,000 over two school years. Support staff will be ensured of $2,500.

Certified employees who are new to the district this school year will also get the $5,000, with one-half paid in December and one-half next June, Owoh said.

The $500 bonus to all employees from the district’s operating fund is a recognition that support staff — particularly those who work 12 months a year — got almost all of their $2,500 bonus last school year based on the $11 a day plan. They would not be entitled to very much, if any, bonus money this year.

Owoh said that almost seemed like a punishment of the support staff. The $500 bonus for all employees ensures that all employees will receive a bonus, he said.

The bonus using the American Rescue Plan money will cost about $1.2 million. The $500 bonus out of the operating fund will be $358,200, according to district documents.