The Bulloch County Board of Education is now asking that the Georgia General Assembly increase the school board’s pay from the current $100 per meeting to $400 per meeting for each regular member and $450 per meeting for their annually chosen chairperson. This will be the board’s first raise in 27 years.

All eight elected board members were present for Thursday evening’s regular meeting, where the “resolution for board member compensation” was the one “new business” item. It followed some routine consent-agenda items, a “school spotlight” report from Nevils Elementary, and the superintendent’s report that included some special recognitions.

Superintendent of Schools Torian White, in that role since July 1, recommended the resolution for the raise to and for the board members.

“In particular I do want to emphasize this has not been updated since 1999, and we all know there has been a lot of change that has taken place since that time,” White said.

He further noted that the resolution does not provide for any reimbursement for travel that board members do inside the county. A clause in the one-page document calling for the raise states that board members, “shall be reimbursed for actual expenses necessarily incurred in the performance of their official duties, excluding mileage reimbursement for travel within Bulloch County.”

So, board members can be reimbursed for travel expenses to Georgia School Boards Association conferences or training events across the state. But they cannot claim mileage payments for driving from the central office in Statesboro to the elementary schools in Stilson or Nevils, or from Brooklet to a graduation at Portal Middle High, for example.

White said he wanted to make sure that “our constituents understand, our citizens understand, that (board members) go to a lot of school programs, graduations, banquets,” at their own expense.

When current board Chair Elizabeth Williams called for a motion on the superintendent’s recommendation to approve the resolution, District 8 member Maurice Hill made the motion and District 6 member Jimmy “Jay” Cook seconded it.

Lanier’s perspective

Then District 1 member Lannie Lanier called for discussion about the pending motion. He has a unique perspective, since he served one term on the board more than 20 years ago, 2001-2004, but returned only in January 2025 after having run unopposed for the District 1 seat in 2024. The pay hadn’t changed during the years he was away.

“When politicians get together and they ask for a raise, that’s never a popular thing,” Lanier said. “So we need to let the public know why that’s something that we need to do.”

Already he had seen social media comments critical of the proposal, including where someone figured “an hourly rate” for the board members based on their being seen at two meetings a month for few hours each time.

“That’s true, but I remember a television commercial that had a famous athlete in it that said, ‘Everything that you see is made possible by all the things you don’t see,’” Lanier said, “and the prep time, the meetings we go to, the background work we go through, the calls with (constituents) and parents. …

“We knew what the job was when we ran for this position, but I think we need to think about the future, and the next person that sits in this seat, I want them to feel like they’re adequately compensated for their time … and the dedication that it takes,” he said.

Requires state action

Williams called for the motion again, and the vote was 8-0. Under a state law, OCGA 20-2-55, cited in the resolution, members of the board of a school district “for which no local act is passed” would receive at least a $50 “per diem” pay for each day of attendance at board meetings or while traveling on official board business. However, boards can have higher rates set by a “local act,” in other words a state law specific to the county or school district.

So the Thursday, Sept. 10 resolution is being directed to state Sen. Billy Hickman, whose district includes all of Bulloch County, and Reps. Butch Parrish, Lehman Franklin and Jon Burns, whose districts divvy up Bulloch County. It calls on them to obtain passage of the local legislation.

The Legislature meets again in January-March 2027, so the new pay rates will not take effect until sometime next year. Meanwhile, one of the current BOE members, Cook, will leave office at year-end, since he did not seek re-election and will be replaced by member-elect Sharon Draeger in January.

Salary comparisons

The Bulloch County Board of Education, as noted, usually holds two regularly scheduled meetings each month. December is often an exception, with only one regular meeting. Indeed, the board’s schedule for the current year contains 23 regular meetings.

But the board may have a number of other, specially called meetings during a year, depending on circumstances. For example, the board held several special meetings during the search for a new superintendent. Occasionally, meetings are called for student disciplinary appeals or employee fair dismissal hearings. Budget-making sometimes also brings special meetings.

Some years, three public hearings are held for an increase in the property millage rate for school operations. But those were not required this year, since the board adopted the “rollback rate” to compensate for inflation in property values.

Annualized example

As a hypothetical basis for comparison, if the board held the 23 regular meetings plus five called meetings in a year, a regular board member who attended all 28 meetings would have received $2,800 for the year at the old $100 rate. But at the proposed new $400 rate, that member would earn $11,200. For 28 meetings, the chairperson would also have received $2,800 at the old rate but would get a total of $12,600 at the proposed, enhanced $450 per meeting rate for the chair.

A little farther below, the Statesboro Herald will note the salaries of two other, locally elected governing boards, the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners and Statesboro City Council. These salaries were not mentioned by Board of Education members, nor was any comparison to them suggested by the Bulloch County Schools staff.

Instead, a press release sent out from the school district’s central office by Public Relations Director Hayley Greene on Wednesday, more than 24 hours before the meeting, provided a comparison of Bulloch’s old but still in effect $100-a-meeting rate with the pay of some other boards of education in Georgia.

“In comparison, board members in school districts of comparable size receive higher compensation for similar work,” the release stated. “Board members in Bryan County earn a minimum of $750 per meeting for a minimum of $9,000 per year. In Emanuel County, members earn $400 per meeting ($4,800 annually) and can receive health insurance benefits. In Barrow County, members earn $550 per meeting, and in Floyd County $1,000 per month.”

Some of those boards apparently have fewer regular meetings each year than the Bulloch County board. If members receiving $750 per meeting met even 23 times, their pay for a year would be $17,250, not $9,000.

The release also noted that the Bulloch County’s school board members receive no health insurance, pension or other fringe benefits from the school district. As in other districts, their pay comes directly from the school system’s general fund budget.

City and county

Statesboro City Council meets about as often as the Bulloch County Board of Education, also with two regular meetings a month, and often cancelling one meeting at a holiday. The council also holds an annual planning retreat, one or two called meetings for budgeting and some tax hearings.

But Statesboro’s mayor and council receive a salary, not a per diem. The salary for regular council members is $11,000, which if they met 28 times would amount to $392 per meeting. The mayor pro tem, chosen every two years by the members from among them, gets $13,500, which for the hypothetical 28 meetings would be about $464 per meeting.

Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar’s current salary is $18,500. Unlike the school board chair and mayor pro tem, the mayor is elected by a citywide constituency.

Similarly, the chair of the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners is elected countywide. The qualifying fee for the chairmanship at the 2024 election suggested a base salary of $20,000, since the fees are typically 3% of a base salary.

But a formula from the ACCG, or Association County Commissioners of Georgia, factoring in things such as years of service and levels of certification, is also applied to commissioners’ salaries, notes Clerk of the Board Venus Mincey White.

According to information requested by the Herald and relayed by White from the county Human Resources office, the current salaries are $33,811.27 for Chairman David Bennett, $21,173.74 for Commissioner Anthony Simmons, $20,232.69 for Commissioner Ray Mosley, $19,291.63 for Commissioner Timmy Rushing and $17,229.23 each for Commissioners Toby Conner, Ray Davis and Nick Newkirk.