The Warren County R-III School Board approved the new salary schedule for the 2017-18 school year during its monthly meeting June 22.The district had been forced to wait in making its decisions after a delay in the release of the state-based numbers.“Any time you’re trying to estimate based on state numbers, you’ve got to be conservative,” said Assistant Superintendent Dr. Aaron Jones. “When you can build your schedule after you know exactly what you’re going to get from the state in local and federal numbers, you can be more accurate with your actual numbers.”Jones says waiting until June to make those decisions is not uncommon.“We got a little bit more money from the state, and our local return is up a little bit too,” added Jones.The starting base salary for teachers in the R-III district is now $36,565, with Masters level starting at $39,065. There are other increases for additional education and certifications. The average overall increase was around 3 percent.Beginning pay for a high school principal is $98,016, while the middle school principal is $84,113 and elementary is $81,333.Assistant principal starting salaries range from $70,558 at the elementary level to $74,729 at the high school.The starting base for classified positions ranges from $10.46 for food service to $18.07 for bus and maintenance.“We were able to give pretty good raises across the board,” said Jones. “That’s always where we want to be is stay financially sound and try to reward our employees for all the hard work they do.”New Salary Schedules