A Way to Pay for Bonuses with ARP
Mena Public Schools is reaching out to staff members and the community to further explain the legislative recommendations and ask for input on a plan for paying them.
At the end of this post, there will be a link to a survey. Please read the information in this post carefully before responding to the questions in the survey.
On July 28th, I shared a post explaining that an Arkansas Legislative Council (ALC) subcommittee recommended that school districts use their ARP ESSER funds to give full-time certified employees a $5,000 bonus and classified employees a $2,500 bonus. Please review the post for details as to why paying the bonuses as recommended would cause difficulty for not just Mena Public Schools, but all schools in Arkansas.
Nevertheless, many conversations and calculations have taken place in the last three weeks, and considering the time, effort, and sacrifice all school employees have made to deliver education during the pandemic, there is a way to take money from some projects to fund the bonuses as they are recommended.
Understanding the Reasoning
When ESSER money was first released to schools, it had to be used for COVID-related expenses. MPS’s allocation for ESSER I was $553,880, ESSER II was $2,425,326, and ESSER ARP was $5,450,815 for a total of $8,430,020. One of the first questions school leaders asked was if bonuses could be paid to staff members because of the extra effort and stress they were being put under. The response from our Department of Elementary and Secondary Education was that we COULD NOT pay bonuses and doing so could result in a federal finding and the funds to be paid back. We also were told to have all funds committed by December of 2024, which is not much time in the school business. So, we gathered feedback from stakeholders about immediate needs caused by COVID and set about budgeting the funds.
ESSER I was spent on stopping and tracking the spread of COVID. We went through those funds quickly. As plans from the state evolved, we used ESSER II for new HVAC systems for cleaner air in the buildings and new camera systems for contact tracing. After adding the cameras for a COVID reason, we understood that they served a higher purpose of safety and protection. We used that logic as we developed further plans considering that the use of federal funds for capital projects would save operating funds for the district for years to come using those savings for the salary schedules.
When ESSER ARP was released, we were told that the money could be spent on recruitment and retention of staff; so, we developed incentives for staff members to earn extra pay and various rewards, and we paid staff twice for the added duties caused by COVID.
We are required to spend at least 20 percent of ARP funds on ‘Learning Loss’ and have budgeted $1,057,000 for two years of salaries and benefits for four certified interventionists and four non-certified aides to help them. This we cannot change but we have some other projects that can be adjusted with the cooperation of contractors we are working with.
We have some big expense items from ARP beginning with outdoor classrooms or pavilions to encourage lessons being taught outside in fresh air. These facilities can also be used in several ways and were considered a wise use of funds for the future. The total cost of the pavilions was first budgeted at around $700,000, but construction costs have increased since then and it will be close to $1.2M for the structures.
Another large expense is to use $1.6M of the funds to remove all VCT tile from school buildings and replace it with polished concrete similar to what Walmart has been doing. This is considered a COVID-related expense because the floors stay cleaner from germs and are easier to clean and disinfect. Furthermore, the removal of tile would be a saving to the district for decades to come since tile requires so much more maintenance. There would be no need to close buildings down in the summer for waxing. Also, the staffing and labor needs in the summer would be less.
Other smaller expenses are ongoing such as tutoring and summer school, but these are the ones that are still in progress and have not been fully paid for. This is where we can make adjustments to pay for the ALC recommended bonuses. We could reduce the scope of floor polishing and do only one building with ARP funds and that would leave enough to cover the bonuses, which will cost $1,175,907.
But before deciding to do this, we need input on the importance of these projects according to you. Please open this link to complete the survey. This form will stop accepting responses at 2 pm on Friday, August 5th, 2022.