Carson City School Board approves retirement incentive

The Carson City School Board approved the monetary incentive for early notification from full-time staff members seeking to resign or retire from the school district at the end of the 2023-24 school year during its Jan. 23 regular meeting.

Superintendent Andrew Feuling and Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Dan Sadler showed the fiscal impact would not exceed $40,000 this fiscal year and that expenditures would come from projected vacancy savings.

The item was tabled Jan. 9 after the board sought more information about whether employees could provide notification whether they were retiring or resigning to qualify for the incentive. The agenda language for the previous board meeting was specific to retiring employees.

This week, Sadler presented historical data from the previous two school years on the total number of employees who had resigned or retired.

In 2021-22, 187 staff members, including all administrative, certified and classified employees, had retired or resigned with 167 completing the school year.

In 2022-23, 112 retired or resigned and 76 finished the school year.

Sadler also showed a timeline with data trends showing the earlier in the year employees provide notice, the easier the district can handle a transition for replacement in hiring. Approximately 28 early notifications were given before March 2022, which is ideal for the district, but CCSD then received 139 late notifications between April through August. This makes it difficult to hire in that short summer period before the new year begins in August, Sadler said.

During 2022-23, there were 28 early notifications before March and 48 notifications between April and August.

Sadler said the district would provide $1,000 per employee, up to a total of vacancy savings. Employees must be full-time and benefited, this must be their first retirement from the district and not be on critical needs and they must have completed five years with CCSD. They also must complete a form to human resources by March 1 and finish their contract of the fiscal year.

Sadler said the incentive would be paid on the final pay period check.

Board President Joe Cacioppo asked Chief Financial Officer Spencer Winward as a trial run whether this move is considered common practice and referred to the Lyon County School District, whom Winward said he had requested data from but had not received a response back from in time for Tuesday’s meeting.

Trustee Mike Walker emphasized the importance of early notifications from employees for retirement or resignations.

“This is a real problem for all of our schools,” Walker said. “It’s harder and harder every year to find teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers. The earlier we know we’re going to have those vacancies, that’s time and money saved by our district. … So this is a good idea because it’s needed.”

The proposal currently is only for the school year, Sadler said in addressing questions from the board, and offered to full-time employees. Feuling addressed the complications from part-time employees, many of whom work up to three and a half hours per day in some cases.

“…The focus really being on making sure those full-time benefitted positions are filled and filled early going into the next school year, I think this is our attempt at that focus … and I think this does a better service for our students coming back next year,” Feuling said.