last week as far as putting in the five

last week as far as putting in the five percent as a benefit for non-taxable purposes,” School Board Chairman Beverly Massie said. She then asked

about the effect the proposal would have on the budget’s bottom line.

Using the figures that had been calculated, Estabrook estimated that the proposal would increase the local share of the budget by $79,303 over last year. “This proposal is sort of a median considering some of the proposals we have,” said Board member Nancy Reeves.

Updike altered his proposal when , the motion was made to increase the teacher/aide salary percentage to the bottom line from 10 percent to 11 percent.

A few teachers and parents attended Tuesday night’s meeting, and there was some discussion of the merits of having the five percent retirement payment included. Board member Bill Oliver said that the proposal would be roughly equivalent to giving an 18.5 percent increase in salary to the teachers.

“There would have to be $1.50 in taxable pay to get $1.00,” Oliver said. “The five percent retirement benefit is worth more than a five percent increase in salary, or taxable dollars.”

Don Bomberger, a teacher, said that figures from the Virginia Education Association illustrated that such, an increase including fringe benefits was worth half of a straight salary increase. “Go look at your 10/40,” Oliver said.

Massie interrupted the conversation and said that “This is not to be an exchange with the audience.”

Updike’s salary proposal was then adopted by a unanimous vote of the Board. The eight percent salary increase for classified employees will be used in a salary scale for those employees

in an effort to have a salary schedule that would consider the employee’s years of experience. “I move that we set the salary schedule with the understanding that no one would take a pay cut according to the percentages adopted,” Reeves said.

The Board then went through the

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