Pflugerville ISD employees may see a significant raise in their wages in the 2019-20 school year after Superintendent Doug Killian confirmed the district was “looking at” raising wages for district employees.

Killian made the remark April 25 after dozens of supporters from the Pflugerville Educators Association—the largest union for PfISD teachers—and other organizations urged trustees to take up the issue.

Movement on the issue comes a week after the Del Valle ISD board of trustees voted to raise employee compensation by 3%. However, Killian clarified that PfISD will likely take a different approach to raising its employee wages if the school district ultimately decides to do so.

“We’ve already been investigating what happened at Del Valle,” Killian said. “They raised the base [wage] but they didn’t raise the equity.”

The prospect of increased wages also comes in the shadow of education funding legislation making its way through the Texas Legislature. Several education bills have included raises for teachers and librarians—ranging anywhere from an average raise of more than $1,300 to a raise of $5,000—while failing to include explicit raises for other school district employees.

Del Valle ISD bumped the minimum wage for its district employees to $15 per hour and $16 per hour for district bus drivers. The school district included language to guarantee raises will proceed “regardless of what the State legislature decides.”

Killian and PfISD Chief Operating Officer Ed Ramos briefly discussed the possibility of district employee compensation increases during Ramos’ monthly financials presentation.

“We know we can comfortably give a 3% compensation pay raise to our employees,” Ramos said.

It is unclear if PfISD employee compensation will be on the docket for May's board of trustees meeting.