Evergreen recommends new pay structure for certified SCCPSS staff; district hears $12.8M salary estimate for phase 2

Savannah-Chatham County Public School System finance committee members on April 16 heard a presentation from Evergreen Solutions proposing a revised classification and compensation plan for certified staff that Evergreen said would narrow inequities, align pay with market peers and add role-based pay additives. Evergreen estimated the salary-only cost of implementing phase 2 (certified staff) at roughly $12.8 million and the combined proposed cost for both phases at about $18.18 million; Evergreen noted those figures do not include fringe benefit markups.

The recommendation came during a budget-development discussion led in part by Mister Ramon Ray, a district staff member, who reviewed the history of frozen step increases and local supplement reductions that he said left teacher pay behind peer districts. "State law says that every teacher has to receive a step increase," Ray told the committee while explaining why the district offset step increases with cuts to the local supplement in FY 2010.

Ally Crumpler, senior consultant with Evergreen Solutions, presented the firm’s phase‑2 findings and recommendations for certified employees and said the study combined an internal review (job assessments and an employee outreach survey) with an external market analysis across 22 peer districts. "Phase 2 was regarding your certified staff," Crumpler said, summarizing the focus of the presentation.

Evergreen reported that among roughly 3,200 certified employees the district uses four certified pay plans and that current range spreads (distance from minimum to maximum pay) average about 38–49 percent, narrower than HR best practice ranges of 50–70 percent. Evergreen recommended common range spreads across degree levels (except where state rules apply), role-based additives (for example, higher multipliers for district directors), restoring previously frozen steps and adding milestone retention increases.

The firm also presented employee-engagement data collected through focus groups and an online survey and reported an average satisfaction rating with compensation of 4.8 on a 1–10 scale. Evergreen said employees repeatedly cited Chatham County’s high cost of living and asked for adjustments to both minimum starting pay and maximum ranges to improve recruitment and retention.

As an example of the proposed structure, Evergreen showed how district-based specialists would be placed on the teacher-based scale and receive an additive (1.1 in the presentation) to compute daily rates; in the hypothetical used during the presentation, that formula yielded an annual salary of $80,670.70 for a district-based specialist at the example step and contract days shown. Crumpler emphasized Evergreen’s approach uses pay ranges (not individual salaries) and that all market data was adjusted for Chatham County cost-of-living differences.

Kristen Fitzpatrick, Evergreen’s on-study point of contact who joined by telephone, said the market survey covered 102 classifications and that three peers (Charleston County, Effingham County and Glynn County) declined to provide full data for the non-teacher classifications. In response to a question about whether peers’ performance or bonus pay was collected, Fitzpatrick said that specific information "was not collected" as part of the district’s market survey.

Committee members pressed on implementation details. Evergreen proposed transitioning employees onto the new plan using the district’s existing guidelines that combine external experience with tenure (a step‑plus‑one approach), and presented salary‑only transition cost estimates: about $2.78 million for implementing the district’s current plan for certified staff in FY26 versus roughly $10 million for Evergreen’s proposed certified plan (phase 2 total ~$12.8 million). Evergreen and district staff said those figures exclude employer fringe benefits; district staff estimated adding about 30 percent for TRS, FICA and related employer taxes when budgeting total cost.

The presentation also revisited employee benefits changes the district has made, including a new portable Aflac supplemental life-insurance option. Ray and board members discussed portability and enrollment timing; Ray said the new Aflac option is portable and available to employees immediately under the vendor’s terms, and described it as a recruitment (not a retention) tool because employees can carry coverage after leaving.

Superintendent Doctor Watts framed the discussion in opening remarks on fiscal stewardship, telling the committee that budget decisions should balance instructional priorities, employee investment and strategic use of resources. Board members and staff discussed broader next steps: adopting a multi‑year compensation policy, phasing reforms to prioritize the most critical vacancies or turnover pressures, and conducting regular small‑scale salary checks with targeted updates every 3–5 years.

No formal vote on the Evergreen recommendations was taken at the finance committee presentation; board members signaled support for a comprehensive multi‑year plan and requested further breakdowns of costs, counts in each classification bucket and options for phased implementation.

Votes at a glance: the meeting opened with a procedural motion to approve the agenda that passed without a recorded roll-call tally.

The committee adjourned after the presentation and questions.