By Gordon Anderson | gordon@rantnc.com
A request from the Lee County Board of Education to more than triple the pay of its elected members was denied Monday night by the Lee County Board of Commissioners, although the school board members were granted a small “cost of living adjustment.”
The Board of Commissioners late last week received a letter from school board chair Sherry Womack, a Republican, who asked that the school board’s pay be brought in line with that of the county commissioners.
School board members currently earn $4,200 per year, while the chair earns $4,800 per year. Board of Commissioners members, by contrast, are paid $12,739 per year, while the chairman makes $14,662.
After Board of Commissioners Chairman Kirk Smith, also a Republican, read Womack’s letter to the rest of the board, Democratic Commissioner Robert Reives Sr. spoke up, noting that “we don’t do the same jobs” and quickly offering a motion instead to grant the school board a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 2.8 percent – $134.40 for the school board chair and $117.60 for the other six school board members – instead of the requested increase.
Reives’ motion passed by a vote of 5-2, with Smith and fellow Republican Samantha Martin voting no. Reives, fellow Democrats Cameron Sharpe and Mark Lovick, and Republicans Andre Knecht and Taylor Vorbeck voted for the cost of living adjustment, which amounts to $840 extra each year.
The school board’s last pay increase came in 2014 (Womack had claimed incorrectly in her letter that 2002 was the last time their pay had been adjusted). Smith didn’t explain his reasoning for voting against the measure, but Martin spoke at length about giving the school board members a larger increase.
“I don’t know that that’s the question we should be asking – is it the same job or not the same job?” Martin said. “We have a long history of compensating our staff in a very fair and generous way, because we are gracious and generous as a county with our employees. I would like that to extend to the Board of Education. The question is, is it the same amount of work? The same amount of time? The same skills? Yes, it is.”
Republican school board member Eric Davidson is that board’s liaison to the Board of Commissioners. He was present Monday and described his workload as a board member at Smith’s request. He said he was planning to spend two hours in student appeal meetings this week, and cited his presence at the commissioners meeting and his time reading the county budget, among other things, as examples of work school board members do beyond their monthly meetings.
“I’ve never sat down and done a log of my time,” he said. “No, I don’t want to do that, because I don’t want to see how much I’m making an hour. It’s just the sense of the value of what it means to be a school board member versus the value of what it means to be on the Board of Commissioners. And I don’t think that speaks well to us as a county.”
Asked by Vorbeck if he knew the salary of a school board member when he ran, Davidson said “yeah. And we ran anyway. And we serve anyway.”
As Smith read the motion to grant the school board a COLA increase, Davidson asked to make a comment and said he’d like for his additional pay to go “back to the county.”
“Evidently the county needs it more than I do,” he said. “I think that COLA is a slap in the face. You keep my COLA.”
Martin offered a motion of her own to grant Womack’s requested increase in full, which then failed. She later said she wanted to make another motion to increase the school board’s pay to $530 per month ($6,360 per year), as well as the 2.8 percent COLA, but Reives asked that she hold that request for the next budget cycle. County Manager Lisa Minter asked that the school board provide information on how other school boards across the state are paid before the commissioners consider any such action.
The Rant will provide further coverage on the county’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2025-26 later this week.
As a Republican in Lee County, this is very simple. Like all jobs, pay raises and promotions are based on performance. SO I ask what has the BOE done that warrants a 3X pay raise? The only metric and education programs should be measured by is the performance of the students. Lee county has some of the worst education testing scores in the state. Lee county only has 1 A rated school and that is Lee Early college. And 1 B rated school. The rest of the county is C rated or worse. The primary function of any headquarters is to ensure the workforce has the resources needed to successfully complete their mission. Currently Lee County teachers are having to buy their own supplies and schools ask students to donate supplies just to have the resources to teach the classes. If Republicans say we are fiscal conservatives and we believe in meritocracy, then tell me what the BOE has done that warrants this raise? The reality is the performance of our schools is poor and the BOE has not successfully lead the county to excellence yet. SO this Republican SAY’s NO!!! To a pay raise. As a Side note I find the smug arrogant comments by Mr. Davidson very telling and distasteful. It is the typical comments of an entitled brat. No Lee County BOE you do not deserve nor are you owed a pay raise until you show some measurable performance and get all of our schools to be “B” Rated or better. If one of my children came home with a report card that had 1 “A”, 1 “B”, 10 “C’s”, 5 “D’s”, and an “F” my kid would be grounded until their grades were all “B’s” or better. https://ncreports.ondemand.sas.com/src/?county=Lee
Dale in the large scheme what you say makes sense, but in the case of Lee County big swaths of kids are pulled out of the public schools leaving a disproportionate number of poorer, less prepared kids from which Lee County has to work. It’s like penalizing a basketball coach who has to play kids that would not make the team at other schools.
Poor tactics often result in a flop or a failure. What the Commissioners make is irrelevant, what matters is what the BOE’s pay in Chatham, Moore, Harnett, Person, and Franklin Counties. Look at those, take into account the number of members, take into account the number of kids, and take into account if they are partisan or non-partisan elections. The five comparable counties have an average population of 88K or 30% more than Lee County (as a physically tiny county, Lee has no direct analog). The workload per Board Member is easy to divise, just the number of kids per Board Member. Then give out about 20% less if it’s a partisan election because partisan school board races draw outside money. You could try to control for private school bleed off which is big in Lee County, lowering the number of kids per Board Member. You could attempt to control for Lee being half the size of the other counties as a means to factor in travel expenses. With such a study you have the basis for a valid request.