Educational assistants, or EAs, and paraprofessionals assigned to pay grades 102-109 will receive pay increases effective April 1. These increases will not impact teacher pay, although the board discussed a Texas Association of School Boards study and presentation regarding teacher pay in the district in relation to its budget.
Starting pay for the EA position, for example, will increase to a minimum of $15.50 and maximum of $21.86. Other positions receiving an immediate pay increase include library assistants, interventionists and interpreters.
Ahead of the vote, some trustees expressed their thoughts on the pay increases. Place 6 Trustee Tiffanie Harrison stated she felt these employees deserved more in the future than the increase approved.
"I just want to say we're not done yet," Harrison said. "This is the market rate adjustment to get us to where we should have been, which is still not enough."
Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez clarified earlier in the night that the March 31 amendment will not preclude those employees from receiving any increases considered for fiscal year 2022-23.
The compensation increases are funded by $470,000 in funds previously budgeted for positions that went unfilled, according to Dennis Covington, RRISD's chief financial officer.
Some public commenters characterized the pay increases as "a start" and asked that the board factor in years of service and the cost of health benefits for employees with family members on their insurance plans. The district covers the cost of health coverage for its employees but not for any additional family members, which some speakers have described at previous meetings as a barrier to affordability.
"If you have an employee in the district who has to put their family on their insurance, that's a bigger chunk of money that's coming out of what they're taking home," RRISD employee Nichole Nunnally said. "So the gross and the net are going to be grossly different."