With Thursday’s tentative adoption of a 2017-18 budget, the Bulloch County Board of Education backed not just the state-funded teacher raise, but a 2-percent pay raise for all 1,400 employees and will fund schools for “local values” such as added counselors. Before approval, the new local-values funding was reduced to 70 percent of the amounts Superintendent Charles Wilson and Chief Financial Officer Troy Brown suggested in the original budget options. Besides a suggestion for more counselors and art, music, physical education and other special-subject teachers, the local values funding brings a boost for schools with higher poverty rates and cash for extracurricular activities and faculty and staff training.