‘This pay scale would put us above Anderson, Knox County’- Josh James

The next Board of Education meeting is Tuesday, August 8, 2023, 6pm, at the courthouse

TOP PHOTO: The Campbell County Board of Education Budget and Finance Committee met Tuesday evening to discuss the daily rate of pay for assistant principals and administrative staff compensation amounts. The committee voted to send the newly proposed compensation pay scale to the school board to be discussed more at the August monthly meeting.

By Charlotte Underwood 

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF) – The Campbell County Board of Education held a Budget and Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday evening to discuss the daily rate of pay for assistant principals and administrative staff compensation amounts. The committee voted to send the newly proposed compensation pay scale to the school board to be voted on at the next meeting on Aug. 15 (CORRECTION:  The meeting will be Tue., Aug. 8).

The school board has established assistant principals and/or instructional data manager positions for the high schools, middle schools and some elementary schools.

At Tuesday’s special called BOE Finance Committee meeting, Finance Committee Chair Josh James brought up a proposal for a revised supplemental pay compensation scale.

According to James, the current scale used by Campbell County is outdated and not competitive enough to recruit principals and administrative staff.

The formula he used to calculate the compensation was student enrollment numbers.  The suggested fixed supplement amount of compensation for high school assistant principals is $12,000. 

For elementary and middle school assistant principals, it would be set at a fixed supplement amount of $4,000 for a student enrollment of 0-175; $5,000 for a student enrollment of 175-350 and $7,500 for a student enrollment of more than 350.

“I’ve went through this and tried to be as fair as possible; These numbers are not set in stone,” James said.  He explained with the new proposal, there were six total employees who were grandfathered into the new pay scale and would not receive an increase in pay compensation 

“Right now, the current pay scale we are on is terrible. If we did this, it would cost us $174,000, including benefits, and the money would come from the capital outlay note,” James said.

The BOE’s Capital Outlay currently sits at $656,850. Doing this proposed pay increase would take the capital outlay down to $482,850.

According to Dr. Jason Horne, most other Tennessee counties use the format that James is proposing.

School board members asked Director of Schools Jennifer Fields what she thought of the proposed changes. 

“I support it. It’s difficult to recruit instructional leaders for your schools when we don’t provide them the compensation other districts are providing, so yes, I do think its very fair,” Fields said. 

“This pay scale would put Campbell County above Anderson and Knox County by a little, “making us competitive,” James said.

While several board members said they wanted more time to look at the proposal, they voted to send it to the school board for additional discussion.

“If we try this for two to three years and don’t like it, we can always go back to the old system where you need 14 calculators and a projector. But now for the six, I’m sorry, but I based it off of student enrollment.” James said.

If approved in August, then the new pay compensation would start in the September payroll, retroactive to July 1.

It will be discussed more in depth at the August BOE meeting, Tue., Aug. 15, 6pm, (CORRECTION:  The meeting will be Tue., Aug. 8) at the courthouse.  (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 08/02/2023-6AM)