Section 18A-4-18 - Department of education certified staff salaries(a) Personnel employed by the state department of education who are required to hold a teaching certificate shall receive a salary that is at least equal to the salary paid to comparable professional personnel employed by the county board in the county in which their office is located, minus the six hundred dollars authorized pursuant to section two of this article for classroom teachers with twenty years of experience.(b) Effective the first day of July, two thousand two, service personnel employed by the department of education shall receive a salary that is at least equal to the salary paid to comparable personnel employed by the county board in the county in which their principal place of employment is located. The department of education shall establish a salary schedule that phases in the necessary salary increases before the first day of July, two thousand two.