by Megan Schiffres
LANCASTER—The Lancaster board of supervisors last Thursday held its final public hearing on a proposed $16,926,053 school budget for 2019-20. The proposed budget represents a total increase of $258,904 and includes a 4% salary increase for teachers and a 2% salary increase for other staff.
Members of the community expressed support for the proposed school budget, especially increases to teacher and staff salaries.
“We need to try to do this budget and approve it at this level and give our teachers the increase they deserve, and now we have another reason to hopefully mitigate some of the turnovers,” said Bill Warren, who spoke in support of the school budget.
Lancaster resident and former school employee Linda Coye also supported increases to teacher salaries and indicated the proposed raises are not high enough to attract talented educators to their schools.
“I would like you to reject it and send it back to the school board and back to the school board office with a mandate that they fund the teacher salary at the same pay scale as West Point,” said Coye…
