The school board and board of supervisors in Roanoke County are at odds over a proposal to give bonuses to the full- and part-time contracted employees of the county's schools.

The school board voted last week, while away at a state school board association convention in Williamsburg, to award $750 and $500 bonuses, respectively, to full-time and part-time staff.

The school board doesn't have the final say on such an appropriation. Instead, the $1.8 million proposal requires approval from the board of supervisors.

The school board proposed paying for the one-time gifts from the school system's health reserve fund. The school system has about 2,000 full-time employees and 50 part-timers.

Supervisor Chairman Mike Altizer on Tuesday said the bonuses are not going to happen because the timing is bad.

"We are in a very tough economy," he said. "There is a concern certainly with the state of the economy, and the uncertainty of what is going to come out of the state budget in terms of the cuts."

Altizer said he spoke to the other supervisors individually before sending a letter to the school board and superintendent Monday. The letter states: "The consensus of the Board is that we cannot take action on the request at this time."

The school board sought a public hearing on the matter at the board of supervisors' next meeting, which is Tuesday. Altizer said the proposal has been removed from the meeting's agenda.

In addition to the troubled economic climate, he said the school board's proposal caught him off guard.

"The first our board members had heard of it was when we read it in The Roanoke Times on Friday," Altizer said.

School board member Jerry Canada, who represents the Hollins District, said the school board had to act quickly in an effort to give the bonuses in paychecks Dec. 15, in time for Christmas.

"I have been around a long time," he said. "I am not naive and I don't have my head in the sand.

"I don't want to create tensions with the supervisors. It would be silly for me, or anyone on our board, to do anything to cause hard feelings."

Nonetheless, Canada said he is disappointed because he believes the school employees deserve the bonuses. School board Chairman Drew Barrineau and Vice Chairman Mike Stovall could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

School officials said the health reserve fund, which contains a balance of about $8 million, is overfunded. Employees' payroll contributions account for about 30 percent of the fund's annual allocations and the school board contributes the rest. Because of the employees' contributions, school board members said they wanted to return the money to them.

"I just think it is their money," Canada said. "I would not feel comfortable financing anything with it or buying anything."

Altizer said he will welcome a discussion about what to do with the division's health fund overage in upcoming budget work sessions, which normally begin after each new calendar year.

"It behooves us to sit back and wait and talk about this through the budget process, to have some good information to make a decision," he said.

The supervisors in September voted down a request to use money from the county's health reserve fund to pay for architectural and engineering studies for a new public library in the Glenvar area, for fear that they might need that money in the next budget year.

Superintendent Lorraine Lange said a meeting of the chairmen and vice chairmen of both boards is scheduled for next week to attempt "to work things out."

But don't expect Altizer to change his mind.

"There's one clear and nonchanging point right now: The state is in dire straits," he said.

Staff writer Cody Lowe contributed to this report.