The Platteville School Board will vote Aug. 10 on pay raises for Platteville Public Schools’ teachers, staff and administrators.

The board’s Personnel and Finance Committee is recommending pay raises of $500 per salary-schedule cell for teachers, 25 cents per hour for support staff, and about 2 percent for administrators and administrative support staff.

The proposed raises would cost the school district an estimated $105,754 in salaries and fringe benefits. That would leave the school district with a 2015–16 budget surplus of $56,166, assuming school district enrollment and property values remain steady and no positions are added, according to school district documents.

The committee chose that option over a proposal to increase teacher salaries by $750 per cell, which would cost $32,344 more than the $500 raise plan.

School board member Josh Grabandt, a member of the committee, called the $500 option the “most fiscally responsible” option Monday night, adding, “As much as we would like to give more, I don’t know how we could fiscally do that.”

The school district will spend less in administrators this coming year with the retirement of Westview Elementary School principal Don Shaw, who is being replaced by assessment coordinator Lisa Finnegan, formerly the principal at Platteville Middle School.

According to figures from the state Department of Public Instruction, Platteville teachers’ 2013–14 average salary of $54,561 was third highest among school districts in Cooperative Educational Service Agency District 3, behind Fennimore ($56,609) and Iowa–Grant ($55,168). Figures for the 2014–15 school year haven’t been released by DPI yet, Valenza said.

Editor’s note: The pay increase costs were incorrect in the printed version of this story; these numbers are correct.