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Payroll committee recommends keeping once‑a‑month pay schedule after staff survey
Summary
A payroll committee that included board members and employees surveyed staff and recommended the district retain its current one-pay-per-month schedule; 69% of survey respondents preferred staying with once-per-month pay, the committee reported.
The payroll committee presented its work and findings to the Geary County Schools Board on Jan. 13, 2025, and recommended the district retain the current once-per-month payroll schedule.
Committee co-chairs described a multi-step process: a diverse committee of roughly 18 employees (including five teachers, hourly classified staff, salaried classified staff and three board members) met three times, issued a presentation and held two in-person sessions plus two Zoom sessions to explain the tradeoffs before polling staff. The committee said it emphasized education before polling to ensure staff understood how a change to bi-monthly pay could affect benefit deductions and paychecks during inclement-weather weeks.
Survey results presented to the board showed an overwhelming preference for staying with the one-pay-per-month model: "Overwhelming 69%, almost 70, chose to stay with 1 time per month and 30% would like to look at 2 times per month," the committee reported. The presenter provided category breakdowns: among certified staff the tally shown was 218 for once-per-month versus 102 for twice; among classified hourly respondents the slide listed 203 for once-per-month versus 90 for twice. Administrative respondents favored once-per-month 16–2. The committee also reported that 62% of staff preferred the district pay after the 15th of the month (the district typically pays around the 20th).
Belle Whaley, representing classified staff on the committee, said the committee’s priority was to educate hourly and classified staff about concrete paycheck examples and how benefits and snow days could affect net pay if pay frequency changed. "When you put out a survey that says, do you want twice a month or once a month, most people want to get paid twice a month. But how it was gonna impact a paycheck for them ... could impact our hourly staff significantly," she said.
After reviewing results and limited public comment, the committee recommended the district "stay with the current system, with the payroll being on or around the twentieth of each month." The board received the recommendation as information; no formal board action to change payroll frequency was required or taken at the meeting.
Committee materials and the survey’s open-ended responses were available to the board; presenters said they would distribute the detailed write-in feedback upon request.
