INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A year after Sheriff’s Office employees got a $1,000 bonus in lieu of raises from retiring Sheriff Roy Raymond, current Sheriff Deryl Loar is expected to give at least some of them a bigger bonus, as much as $1,600 each.

It’s the product of an unusual situation, sheriff’s Comptroller Harry Hall said Monday. He said he expects to have $747,000 unspent at the end of the month.

Some of the savings, he said, came from budgeting $3.48 per gallon last fall for patrol cars’ gasoline and seeing prices drop to $1 less. And there haven’t been as many jail inmates hospitalized, he added.

“It’s like the planets all lined up,” Hall said. “It’s unrealistic to think this can continue (in future years).”
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STUART — Teachers in the Martin County School District voted today to ratify a contract that will provide each of them with a $300 bonus this year.

Eighty-four percent of teachers who voted approved the contract.

School officials and union representatives reached the settlement in December after one negotiating session — a stark contrast to last year when the two sides went to impasse — and agreed that raises were not possible with this year’s budget constraints. Martin schools have lost about $9.6 million in revenue this year compared to the start of the last school year, school officials said.

Most teachers in the district received a 5.25 percent raise last year after negotiations went to impasse. A special magistrate recommended that the district accept the teachers’ plan, but district officials disagreed. The school board eventually voted to accept the district’s plan.

This year’s agreement provides instructional personnel with a one-time $300 bonus and resolves 22 contract-language issues, including increasing to five the number of personal days a teacher may take consecutively.