The 2022-2023 budget summary was the topic of the night at Tuesday's MNPS board meeting. With a budget meeting prior and a robust discussion following public comment, the board ultimately decided to defer approving the so-called Summary of Changes to Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Operating Budget. This version of the budget is not the comprehensive budget.
Awards and Recognition and Director’s Report
The meeting started by recognizing 12 students as the Academies of Nashville Students of the Year. Director of schools Adrienne Battle provided a short report that touched on COVID-19 case numbers in MNPS. For the week of May 2 to May 8, 21 staff members and 47 students tested positive for COVID-19. These numbers are a slight uptick from previous weeks, but still much lower than they were at the beginning of the year.
Slide: MNPS
Budget Discussions
The discussion around the budget was at times intense, with raised voices, gavel banging and even some tears of frustration. The largest topic of discussion was pay increases for support staff, a move that MNPS employees and their unions have been pushing for. Highlights from the proposed summary include a 4 percent cost-of-living adjustment for all staff, along with certified step increases and paid family leave. Some support staff positions would also see raises. Bus drivers were benchmarked to receive a $6.20 raise that would put starting wages at $22.25 per hour, while nutrition service workers were set for a $2-per-hour salary increase, and paraprofessionals’ starting pay was proposed to jump by $2.52.
During public comment, MNPS employees approached the board to share their thoughts on the proposed budget. One speaker, who represented a handful of MNPS sign language interpreters, asked the board not to overlook them in the support staff pay raises.
“I’ve been working, doing this for 28 years,” said MNPS paraprofessional Michelle Hardy. “Teachers or the principals could not do this job without support. We feel like we’re not appreciated. They want to throw us scraps, they want to throw us change here, little pennies here. … I thought about quitting my job so many times. … Y’all have to understand, that little money y’all give us — I mean, we appreciate it, I promise. I appreciate it, but then y’all are gonna tell us, ‘Just take it and just be quiet and be OK with it.’ That’s not acceptable. But if y’all appreciate us like you say you do, you will show us like you showed the teachers.”
Last year, the mayor’s office worked in conjunction with the Nashville Public Education Foundation and Education Resource Strategies on a pay study that informed teacher raises. This year, a similar study was commissioned for support staff. There is ambiguity surrounding this pay study, whether it’s complete and how it was used to inform proposed support staff wages.
“I just think that this school board is at a severe disadvantage and that this much-talked-about pay study has not been presented to us in any way, and yet we have been presented with this summary budget that is supposedly based on this pay study,” said District 3 representative Emily Masters.
District 2 representative Rachael Anne Elrod reminded folks that, in the past, board members have not seen similar pay studies, “It's not inappropriate that we haven't received it,” said Elrod. “It would have been best practice, but it is not a precedent.”
Elrod made a motion to defer the approval of the Summary of Changes to Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Operational Budget until the board receives the pay study. The motion passed, and the board will have to meet again to further discuss this matter.
