A school district in Virginia recently announced plans to pursue a new superintendent as well as reevaluate its employee incentive program as it relates to retirement.
According to the Gazette Virginian, the Halifax County School Board plans to use the Virginia School Board Association in its search for a new school superintendent with board members expected to pay at least $12,000 for the state association in providing its services.
Walter Potts, Education District 8 representative, told the newspaper he is opposed to the amount of money going toward the search as there is no internal structure in place, as board members unanimously approved the search proposal following a discussion on January 19.
However, Karen Hopkins, board chairman and ED-2 representative, responded to Potts’ objections by naming off several of the tasks that the superintendent search is expected to accomplish.
“The VSBA will provide the board with guidelines to be used in developing a profile of the new superintendent,” Hopkins said. “A criteria survey may be distributed to school staff, community, groups, local newspapers, public libraries and other institutions. They will monitor the search process closely in order to ensure the quality and number of candidates meet board standards and expectations as well as to ensure no violations of state and federal law. On the basis of board-approval criteria, the VSBA will perform an initial screening of an applicant’s file.”
In addition, the school board is pursuing to revisit its retirement incentive program with the original proposal calling for $100 per day from the first to a total of 185 days at most with the reimbursement not to exceed an employee’s pay rate per diem, as well as for paying days in excess of 180 a rate of $25 per day, the newspaper states.
“To give them that 185 days if they acquire it, then if we don’t give them that incentive, that’s like we’re saying that they don’t deserve it,” Potts said. “Those are the people who showed up to work when their babies and husbands were sick and when they were sick. When they didn’t feel like coming to work, they still showed up. Sounds like we’re going to punish our people.”
School districts across the country are adopting early retirement incentive programs to cut costs. According to the Chicago Heights Patch, the city Chicago Heights recently approved the use of a program from the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund aimed at offering certain employees buyouts so they can retire up to five years early.
Learn how an employee incentive program can benefit your company
