Officials clash on school salaries

MC school board seeks 5.2% teacher
raises; supervisors proposed only 2%

Despite warnings from the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors during February budget work sessions that the board would only support a 2% cost of living raise for school employees, the school board voted 4-0 on Monday, March 9, to propose a budget with a 5.2% raise for teachers and 4.2% to all other school employees.

At a work session in February, County Administrator Matt Walker told supervisors that his budget proposal supports no higher than 2% raises for school employees. He said that if the school board wants high raises the school board has the power to do so by taking “funds out of other categories of their own budget.”

Supervisors requested at an earlier work session that funding for the weapons detection systems be reclassified from the operating budget to the Capital Improvement Plan…