All employees in the Bowling Green Independent School District should expect to see 1 percent pay raises in July after approval from the district’s board of education Monday.

Superintendent Gary Fields raised the possibility of salary increases when the board met in March. The increase is coming from local funds, he said.

Board members approved the increase but lamented their inability to grant a bigger increase to the district’s staff.

Along with addressing current business, the board looked to the district’s future challenges. District officials would like to extensively renovate Bowling Green High School, a building that’s half a century old, but the district lacks the bonding capacity to complete the project all at once.

“We are looking at doing a phased-project that over time will result in a new facility of Bowling Green High,” he said. “We’re working closely with the architects as well as our bonding agents to determine what’s the most effective way to move forward to do that in as timely a manner as possible.”

The last thing the district wants, Fields said, is to stretch out the BGHS project for years on end.

“We’re looking at different ways to see if we can increase our bonding capacity to meet the needs of the high school initially in the first project and then further down the road in a second project,” he said.

Board members also approved the district’s tentative budget, which totals almost $52 million with roughly $40.5 million for the general fund.

The district’s tentative budget follows its draft budget. Jeff Herron, the district’s finance director, outlined several changes, including an increase of more than $68,000 through the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky program.

Board member Michael Bishop wondered about the impact of a recent U.S. House vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and how that would affect the district’s Medicaid reimbursements.

Herron said he wasn’t sure, but he speculated that it could have an impact. He estimated that last year’s Medicaid reimbursements were more than $200,000, and this year’s more than $300,000.

“I would anticipate that going down,” he said.

Fields said U.S House members, such as Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, may not have a full sense of how it could affect school districts. He said the Kentucky School Board Association is working to help.

“I think KSBA is working to maybe give us some specific talking points with our U.S. congressmen,” he said.

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.