Must Board re-vote on Employee Bonus?

$1,500 Gross Income is NOT the same as $1,000 net-afer-taxes.

Will the Richland 2 school board have to vote again on the bonus for full-time and part-time staff?

The error made is not minor.

In the Board packet was a Budget Recommendation for a full-time bonus of $1,580 and a part-time bonus of $789 to permanent employees.

However, the agenda (prepared by the superintendent and the chair), the superintendent's explanation of the bonuses, and trustee-elect McKie's Motion were all wrong. They did not follow the written document that had been presented to the board and which was shown to the public during the discussion.

The superintendent talked about a $1,000 bonus "net after taxes" to full-time permanent employees. That is NOT the same as a $1,580 bonus. He referred to a $500 bonus "net after taxes" to part-time permanent employees.

Anyone with an accounting or tax background quickly understands the difference. 

Voting on (promising) a specific dollar-amount "net after taxes" means the District will have to gross-up each employee's income to yield the amount promised. That's a huge amount of accounting work.

IRS is not going to say, "Oh, that's just a technicality." The District's C.F.O. will understand the problem. I can fully appreciate why he wouldn't have interruprted his boss on Tuesday night to correct him. But that would have been the right time.

How will the District fix this? Will the board have to re-consider the bonus at the next regular meeting and then approve a correctly-worded Motion?