Just weeks after the Jefferson County Board of Education laid off hundreds of workers — and then rescinded those layoffs — the board has given raises to much of its workforce.

The board voted in a special meeting Thursday to give most of its non-teaching staffers some form of pay increase, ranging from a hike of 50 cents per hour for workers such as food service, custodial, nurses and other support staff, to increases in supplements for coaches and some principals.

Additionally, the range of annual increases for longevity in the system — often referred to as “step levels” — has been increased for many positions to a full 28 years, the maximum provided by state guidelines. Previously, some positions had their steps capped at 11 years, giving long-serving employees no significant financial incentive to stay with the system.

Positions specifically targeted for increases include child nutrition workers, coaches and principals, plus some accounting positions in the central office. Supt. Craig Pouncey said at the time that JefCoEd was losing personnel in those positions to neighboring school systems because they could get better pay elsewhere, which put his system in the position of constantly hiring and training replacements for those who left.

“Our biggest concern was losing our principals,” Pouncey said. “At a superintendent’s conference a week ago, the number-one conversation among superintendents was, ‘I cannot find high school principals.’ We’ve got some great principals in Jefferson County … and I think it’s important that we retain good leadership.”

The original proposed salary schedule, discussed two weeks ago in the board’s regular June meeting, did not include the 50-cent hourly increase. But after board member Martha Bouyer expressed concern that the increases were too specific in their targeting, she asked that action on the revised schedule be tabled.

Since then, Pouncey, Bouyer and fellow board member Jacqueline Smith worked with the numbers to come up with raises for the hourly workers, but in a way that wouldn’t put too big a dent in a budget that already had issues.

Chief School Finance Officer Sheila Jones said that the 50-cent hike would cost about $500,000 a year, and the extension of longevity step increases would add another $434,000 to the cost. That would gradually cut into the system’s required reserves over a five-year period, reducing the general fund to $35.6 million by 2020 — a reserve of 1.45 months, still above the state-mandated reserve of 1.0 month.

That decline would reverse the next year, as the system’s current bond issues are paid off. That assumes that property millage taxes currently in effect would be renewed by voters in 2016, with no increase or decrease, and also that the state legislature will not provide any significant funding increases in the next few years.

There will be no increases, though, for teachers who aren’t also coaches. “They’re already getting about $1,600 more per year than the average of neighboring systems,” Jones said.

JefCoEd coaches had been seeking some additional financial help, as they saw colleagues in neighboring systems benefit from increasing pay while theirs did not keep pace.

“We’re not asking to be the highest paid,” Pinson Valley baseball coach Shane Chappell told the board. “We’d just like to be shown some appreciation, so that we can help keep quality people in our district.”

In other business, the board approved five administrative hirings that include Matthew Hodge as a new assistant principal at Pinson Valley High, and Tinker Rogers as an assistant principal at Gardendale Elementary.