Superintendent Erickson and district business staff briefed trustees on Sept. 10 about how the state’s 2024–25 external cost adjustment (ECA) and local budget decisions affected staff compensation.
The state provided funding through the ECA earlier in the year; the district also supplemented that allocation from carryover funds. The superintendent said the statewide ECA amount that Lincoln County School District No. 2 received was about $1,513,000 and that the district added roughly $1.2 million from carryover funds to increase staff compensation.
That combination, Erickson said, produced an average certified (teacher) compensation increase of a little over 10% and an average support‑staff increase of about 9.29% for the most recent cycle. He asked the board to note that a Legislative Service Office (LSO) chart circulating on social media that showed a smaller percentage (3.36%) was based on the state funding model’s base‑teacher amount and did not account for the district’s larger local salary base or the district top‑up from carryover funds.
“It's a fair question to ask where the money went,” Erickson said; “the district exceeded the ECA by about $1.2 million and we used that to fund steps, health‑insurance increases and additional step movement for employees who had been frozen.”
Context and detail provided by the administration:
- The state funding model had previously funded a base teacher at about $40,652; an 8.5% ECA applied to that base equaled roughly $3,456 on the model base. The district’s actual local base was higher (the superintendent said roughly $60,380 the previous year and $63,070 after local adjustments), so the ECA applied to the model base will not look like an 8.5% increase on the district’s actual pay scale.
- The district also picked up health‑insurance increases (about $1,780.80 per employee, as presented) and restored up to three frozen step increases for eligible staff.
Trustees asked for clarification about the LSO chart’s methodology; district administrators said the LSO numbers did not include district carryover contributions and therefore understate the total local compensation increases. The superintendent and business office said they would continue to supply clarifying documentation and thanked the board for approving the local supplement that funded the added steps and benefits.
Ending note: district leaders said they will make detailed payroll and budget documentation available to board members and the public on request to allow verification of the presented averages.