The newly minted conflict of interest rules meant only three members of the budget committee were allowed to vote on the question of teacher raises, for which they voted unanimously to approve the bump in local educator pay.

Budget committee members Dennis Slager, Jeff Adcock and Jeff Barnes all voted for the $1,250 teacher raises. Principals Sabrina Farler of West and Anita Parker of Smithville Elementary were not allowed to vote on the question since they will benefit from the increase because they are school system employees.

While not official yet until the entire commission votes on the budget, the plans are for all 225 local teachers to get an increase of $1,200 from the county in addition to $800 they are getting from the state for an actual pay raise of $2,000. The other employees of the school system who are not teachers will get an $800 raise if the plans passes.

The planned raises will cost about $400,000 and will come from the school budget.

The increase comes as it was revealed DeKalb County has one of the lowest average teacher salaries in the state.

During a talk to the Retired Teachers Association this past week, county commission member Dr. Scott Little told educators that DeKalb County is losing some good teachers to other counties because they can make much more by driving a few miles.

“We just lost a really good teacher to Murfreesboro because that teacher can make $10,000 more a year by just driving a few miles,” Little told those in attendance.

Statistics show the average teacher in DeKalb County makes $43,060, a number dramatically less than the $53,502 the same teacher makes in Rutherford County. Little added that the average teacher makes $46,369 in Tennessee, meaning DeKalb is way under even the average salary. He added the amount here is less than virtually every count DeKalb touches as Warren County teachers make about $1,500 more, Cannon about $1,000 more, White about $4,000 more. Wilson $5,000 more and Putnam about $1,500 more.

“I’m all for building new schools,” he said. “But what good are new schools if we don’t have teachers to teach in them?”