Staff shortages have led the Columbia County School District to offer pay incentives for current and potential employees.
On Dec. 14, the district initiated its incentive referral program in which workers can earn up to $500 for referring a candidate hired between that date and April 28, 2023, going the way of Georgia school districts with similar programs such as Gwinett County.
Those new school district employees can earn up to $1,000, receiving the first $500 in the pay period after 60 days of employment, and the remaining $500 at the end of the fiscal year. They can also now receive $250 per semester for perfect attendance.
Chief Human Resources Officer Tony Wright said that the school district is always looking to recruit more teachers and administrators, but that the incentive is primarily targeting applicants for transportation, custodial, school nutrition and special education paraprofessional roles.
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“We’re operating fine, but shorthanded, or not to the staffing levels that we would like to be,” Wright said. “We just need to attract more people.”
Administration had been discussing the idea of an incentive program roughly two months before launching it last December. While this is the first time the district has deployed a pay incentive for referrals, Wright said, the School Board approved distributing $1,000 bonus stipends for all district employees in October of 2021.
“We have to be very careful and be very good stewards of the public’s money,” said Wright, noting the idea of a pay incentive via referral grew out of discussions among district administrative directors.
The school district’s human resources department hopes to attract at least 60 new employees across the four aforementioned categories, “plus five to 10 teachers,” Wright also said that while the district doesn’t currently have 100 vacancies, that higher number of applicants would be ideal, in anticipation of some employees moving away or retiring within the next month or so.
“We just want to make sure that we get more than enough, and we keep the pipeline open so that we continue to get enough,” Wright said.
For more information, visit www.ccboe.net/incentives/.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
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