How we got here
The board first received the Texas Association of School Board's compensation plan recommendations during its Feb. 27 budget workshop meeting.
According to Amy Campbell, TASB's director of HR services, the organization collected salary data from 12 neighboring school districts and information from a survey sent to over 100 LISD administrators last fall.
Per the survey results, respondents almost universally felt that pay is not comparable to the local cost of living, contributing to low staff morale and issues with recruitment and retention.
The action taken
Two of TASB's recommendations approved by the board includes an authorization for Superintendent Bruce Gearing to approve a one-time retention payment of $1,000 per full-time employee or $500 per part-time employee.
Gearing will also be able to amend the compensation and benefits plan after the start of the 2025-26 fiscal year based on the outcome of the current legislative session.
TASB would normally say it's "risky to wait" to make compensation decisions before the end of the legislative session, as neighboring districts are likely to make decisions and LISD would not want to fall behind, Campbell said.
However, ongoing discussions during the current legislative session—which concludes June 2—includes several bills such as House Bill 2 that could alter public school funding and compensation.
"So much of what is happening is still in flux that there's a risk involved with adopting anything before the Legislature takes action," Campbell said.
What else?
The third TASB recommendation approved by the board includes implementing targeted pay adjustments for about half of LISD's staff.
While no across-the-board general pay increase was recommended or is currently planned, these pay adjustments would bring LISD closer to the median market salary.
The $3.5 million impact to the budget would include:
- $1.04 million for 698 operations support employees
- $1.3 million for 400 professional support employees
- $351,900 for 62 administrative leadership employees
- $232,800 for 260 instructional support employees
- $220,100 for 1,262 teachers and librarians
- $219,800 for 205 administrative support employees
- $167,600 for 71 technology employees
- $1,500 for two executive leadership employees
"Whatever happens this legislative session, whatever doesn't happen this legislative session, we've got to adjust [pay] and bring those folks that are under market as close [to market] as we can," board President Gloria Gonzales-Dholakia said. "... When we think about the cost of losing people and bringing new people in and training new people, I look at this and I'm like, 'This is keeping our staff. This is keeping good people in LISD.'"
