VIDALIA — Teachers and support personnel for the Concordia Parish School Board received an early gift at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The board voted to approve a $600 increase to annual supplements for school personnel employed as of Oct. 1 of this year.

Teachers will receive $1,000 instead of $400 and support personnel will receive $800 instead of $200.

The additional money received is put on the employee’s 13th check, which they receive every year as a bonus.

The additional $600 was one of two recommendations from Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein regarding more money for teachers and support personnel.

The first recommendation, which did not pass, was to increase the current sales tax supplements for teachers and support personnel at a two to one ratio $1,000/$500 base prorated from January 2011 to the end of the year for all employees.

Board member Fred Butcher said the board needed to look further into the recommendation.

“When you prorate this kind of money to people, you aren’t looking at much money they are getting a month,” he said. “I would like to see certified and non-certified employees getting as much as we can to give them.”

Board President Gary Parnham said the board would discuss this issue at its December meeting.

“The funds have to be available in that sales tax account,” he said.

Parnham also said he would like to thank the board, superintendent and the public for their work on getting raises for school personnel.

“The way the economy is, in most school districts throughout the country, they are cutting their budget,” he said. “It is admirable, in times where everyone is hurting, that the board can raise them.”

In other news:

The board voted to approve the expenditures from October in the amount of $3,877,187.

 Citizenship awards were handed out to a student from sixth through eighth grade from every school in the parish.