Grapevine-Colleyville ISD’s hourly support staff will soon receive a pay raise after trustees adopted a 5% pay increase at the Feb. 24 Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board meeting.

After examining surrounding districts, GCISD staff discovered that pay to its hourly workers is “well below the market pay for their respective positions,” meeting documents show.

GCISD is a "destination district" for area employees, including bus drivers and custodians, district staff said.

"We really need to keep these employees from going next door," staff said. "There comes a point where the need to make more money will override their dedication to us."

District staff also reported a high amount of vacant hourly positions. The board heard that currently the district has 17 vacant custodial openings, five maintenance engineer openings and seven nutrition employee vacancies. The pay raise would help attract more interested persons to apply and help fill those vacant positions while also aiding in personnel retention, according to meeting documents.


However, staff pointed out that even with the pay raise the district would still fall short of market pay for these positions, with the exception of custodial wages.

"We're hoping this can be seen as a good-faith effort," staff said.

The 5% pay increase will be reflected on district hourly employee’s paychecks starting April 3, per district documents. The 5% pay raise for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year will total about $120,400. The money will stem from current budget savings from ongoing vacancies in its personnel budget, according to district documents.

For the 2020-21 school year, the annual increase of $422,330 will be included in the budget planning process.