With minimum wage on the rise, the Copiah-Lincoln CommunityCollege Board of Trustees Thursday approved salary increases forthe faculty and staff, with an emphasis on employees at the lowerend of the pay scale.

College President Howell Garner said the budget committee feltit was important to compensate for salaries in a year when theextra funds were available and they didn’t need to be taken from atuition increase. He said workers with lower salaries would receivea higher percentage raise as minimum wage will be going up.

“Some employees are making just above minimum wage, and we feltwe needed to do something more for them percentage-wise,” hesaid.

Dean of the College Dr. Ronald Nettles said the faculty willreceive a $2,500 raise over a year in increments.

“The percentages will come in for everyone else,” Nettlessaid.

He said the lower end salaries will receive a higher percentage,but there was no way to give exact percentages since they dependedon salary and length of employment.

He said the average would be around 5.5 percent.

Roy Winkworth said the committee was happy with their work.

“We feel good about the package we have put together,” hesaid.

Dr. Steve Wells said the budget committee had decided that themain issues they wanted to correct with the 2008-2009 budget werethe fund balance and personnel.

“In the past we’ve had to address this with tuition increasesand not filling some positions, but this year we’re in goodposition to do this,” he said.

Full-time personnel for the college district and the recommendedsalary increases were also approved at the meeting, contingent onthe balanced budget.

In other board action, coach and administrator Gwyn Youngretired his position as vice president of Student Services afterdecades of service to the school. He will not be leaving hisathletic director position and coaching duties, Co-lin officialssaid.

“It has been a very difficult decision to make after 33 years ofworking at Copiah-Lincoln and I appreciate the opportunity I wasgiven to work at CLCC,” he wrote in his resignation letter. “TheCo-Lin family has become a part of my extended family.”

Young’s retirement will take effect June 30.

The board also approved a three-year technology plan for thecollege district for computerized file storage capacity. Garnersaid with systems as they are currently, there is not enough memoryto back up all the electric files of the three campuses.

“I feel like there is a tremendous need for this,” he said. “Ifthere was a problem with the equipment or it was destroyed, you’dneed backup, and if you didn’t have it, you couldn’t replace thosefiles.”

Currently the school is operating on 27 servers that are out ofwarranty, Garner said, and will only need 18 under the newsystem.

The funds for the project, estimated to cost $330,000, will comefrom capital improvements.