Kemp announces $1K bonus for Georgia teachers, state employees
State workers, teachers receive thousand-dollar bonus
Thousands of state employees across Georgia got an early present. The governor announced a big bonus for teachers and other state workers: a thousand dollars each. There’s also a big chunk of money going to make safety improvements in public schools.
ATLANTA - The state of Georgia will be sending out a one-time $1,000 retention pay supplement to more than 300,000 state employees, educators and school support staff before 2023 is done.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced the payment at the Georgia State Capitol on Monday morning.
"Given how hard these men and women have worked to serve Georgians during the pandemic, to help keep our community safe, and to help make the state government more streamlined and efficient, this seems wholly appropriate to me," Kemp said.
The $330 million payment will be given to each of the around 112,000 eligible, full-time state employees and 196,000 educators and staff across the state.
The pay supplement is planned to appear in employees' last paycheck in December.
"It's going to be a good Christmas and new year in Georgia, and more good news is coming in the upcoming year," Kemp said.
TEACHER RETENTION AN ISSUE IN GEORGIA, SITUTATION COULD GET WORSE
The governor also announced a $100.3 million addition to provide $45,000 to every public school in the state to use for school security and safety.
The state's amended 2024 fiscal year budget will include both the pay supplement and security funding.
While the bonus are expected to be an incentive for teachers and employees to stay in their position, data from the Georgia Department of Education earlier in 2023 showed that statewide teacher retention has dropped for the last two years.
FOX 5 looked at data on several major school districts in the metro area, including Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Atlanta Public Schools, and found that teacher retention had dropped in each of the districts.
Georgia's FY 2023 budget included $2,000 raises for state employees, public university employees, technical college employees and public school teachers. State-funded public librarians and teachers in state-funded preschool programs also received $2,000 raises, while K-12 school cafeteria workers, bus drivers and nurses received 5% salary boosts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.