The Gainesville City School Board approved an additional bonus to school system employees who worked through the pandemic at their meeting this week.
The $500/each bonus will come from CARES 2 funding, with the projected local funds at $600,000. These are the same funds the governor announced would be used in January for teacher bonuses, with the $500 from the school system funds in addition to the initial $1,000 bonus.
"We decided to step it up a little bit based on the sacrifices our employees have made over the last year," said Superintendent Jeremy Williams. "We're number four as a county overall in the cases (of COVID-19) per hundred thousand, and what better way to show people how much we appreciate the work they did in the past year."
Williams described it as a one-time retention payment at Monday's meeting.
Williams said the school system was not remote for very long before returning to in-person learning as soon as they could. "This is just a way for the board and I to show how much we care about our employees because they care about us and our kids and getting them back to school."
The board voted in favor, with Sammy Smith abstaining.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2021/4/1000013/gainesville-schools-employees-to-get-500-bonus