The Pflugerville ISD board of trustees approved pay increases for district staff and teachers at its April 21 meeting, although several teachers in attendance said district pay still lags behind rates found in other Texas metro areas.

Pflugerville Educators Association President August Plock said he has been working in the district for 18 years and is now making the equivalent of the starting salary for an educator in Houston or Dallas.

“People want to live in Austin so [districts] can get away with paying less,” Plock said. “But I think it’s starting to impact Central Texas’ ability to recruit teachers.”

Trustee Carol Fletcher said the district is not intentionally paying teachers less compared with other metro areas. She said the district dedicates about the same percentage of its budget to personnel, but it receives less overall in funding from the state.

“We know [teachers] are our most valuable asset, and we know we have to pay to get the best people,” she said. “I do find it quite telling that this is a consistent problem in Central Texas.”

Superintendent Alex Torrez said via email that the district has raised teacher starting salaries every year since the 2013-14 school year. He said the district’s benefits package, which includes low health insurance deductibles for employees and a buyback program for unused teacher days, further increases the district’s competitiveness.

Pay raise methodology

The district based the raises on the results of a market study performed by the Texas Association of School Boards.

District employees—including teachers and support staff—received a pay raise based on 2 percent of their position’s midpoint. For positions in which the pay is still less than 90 percent of the market average, an additional adjustment may be given, according to district documents.

According to district documents, the raise increased the starting salary for an educator in PfISD from $43,675 in the 2015-16 school year to $45,000 in the 2016-17 school year.

Central Texas rates

Fletcher said in her view a 2006 change in how the state funds school districts is a major reason Central Texas school districts cannot pay teachers at the same rate as other Texas metro areas.

House Bill 1 from the third called session of the 79th Texas Legislature moved to reduce school district’s maintenance and operations, or M&O, property tax rates by one-third, so a district with a $1.50 per $100 valuation M&O property tax rate had its rate reduced to $1. In an attempt to compensate districts for the lost revenue the state moved to a targeted-revenue model, one in which the state would compensate districts for the amount of revenue they received per student in 2005.

Fletcher said there may have been adjustments in the funding formula, but the gap between Central Texas and other metro areas has not decreased. Fletcher said with Central Texas’ rising issues of affordability as well as shifting demographics, the state’s funding formula model is holding PfISD back in terms of state funding.

“Once they locked that in, everyone in the state had this targeted revenue, so even as your own property values rise, they said, ‘We’re just going to give you less [state funding],” she said. “It’s a zero-sum game, and the system is rigged.”