By a 4-1 vote last Thursday, the Mathews County School Board adopted its operating budget for the 2024-2025 school year, a budget that includes a 5 percent raise for all employees (4 percent plus one step on the salary scale) as well as increasing the division’s lowest paid workers to $13.50/hour in anticipation of pending legislation that seeks to raise the state’s current $12-per-hour minimum wage.

In a special meeting held in the Brooks Auditorium at Thomas Hunter Middle School prior to the school board’s town hall (see related story), school board chair Dr. Mari Gibbs, vice chair Linda Hodges and members Mary Kathryn Diggs and Calvin Morgan voted in favor of the budget, with Bobby Dobson casting the lone nay vote.

Dobson, who passed on voting the first time around until all the others had voted, spoke in favor of a larger raise to avoid problems with teacher staffing come the fall.

The $18.28 million budget proposal now goes to county supervisors for that board’s consider...