The Carroll ISD board of trustees unanimously approved teacher and staff pay increases for fiscal year 2026-27 at the April 20 regular board meeting.
The overview
CISD plans to invest $2 million-$2.25 million into teachers and staff pay raises for FY 2026-27, Executive Director of Human Resources Melanie Kibodeaux said.
Teachers will see a salary increase of $2,000 based on their credible years of service, which is over a 3%-from-midpoint increase, according to district documents. This will be added on top of the state-funded teacher pay increase, which consists of:
- $2,500 for teachers serving three to four years
- $5,000 for teachers serving five or more years
Additionally, the starting pay for certified teachers will increase from $60,200 to $62,200, according to district documents. Noncertified teachers’ starting pay will be $60,000.
“What we're trying to strike here is a good balance of what we can afford to remain competitive in this area,” CISD Superintendent Jeremy Glenn said. “Then, we're also trying to proactively look down the road to make sure we can continue to take care of our staff after we start generating revenue from the sale of surplus property.”
Diving deeper
In addition, the board of trustees wanted to give staff who did not receive state-funded salary increases last year a pay bump, Glenn said.
Nonteacher staff will receive a pay increase, which includes:
- A flat $5,000 salary increase for behavior specialists, counselors, English as a second language specialists, librarians, multitier systems of support specialist, nurses, Section 504 specialists, transition specialist, diagnosticians, licensed specialist in school psychology, therapists, audiologist and speech-language pathologists
- A 3%-from-midpoint pay raise for administrative and professional staff not listed above
- Increasing the daily guarantee of work by an additional half hour for bus drivers and bus aides
- A 5%-from-midpoint pay increase for clerical, paraprofessional staff and auxiliary staff other than bus aides and bus drivers, and providing individualized equity adjustments based on years of service
Clerical paraprofessional and auxiliary staff are the district's lowest paid staff, Kibodeaux said.
“We wanted to take a deep dive into our lowest paid employees and make sure that those individuals received more from a percentage standpoint, even with the understanding that a 5% raise for those employees doesn’t necessarily yield what a 3% raise made for teachers, but we felt like it’s important to continue moving those up,” Glenn said.
Looking ahead
The district plans to continue giving staff and teachers pay raises in future years using the funds from the sale of surplus properties, CISD President Cameron Bryan said.
“We're not going to take the proceeds from the sale of surplus property and just spend them,” he said. “We're going to put them in some sort of an investment account, whether that be a high yield account or whatever our district is allowed to do, and let that money sit and earn interest. Then, we can put [that interest] each year towards a teacher and staff raise [and] not have to rely on the state Legislature every other year to give our teachers and staff a raise.”
The district’s goal is to provide all CISD staff a 3% raise for the 2027-28 school year, according to district documents. This would result in a total pay increase of 6% above what the state provides for teachers, meaning teachers will receive a salary increase of more than $9,000 over a three-year period.
“We're taking a conservative approach to giving salary increases,” Glenn said. “We know that there is more work to be done. It's just we can't do it all at once.”
Edtior's note: This story has been updated to correct an error. Carroll ISD is guaranteeing an additional half hour of work for bus drivers and bus aides for fiscal year 2026-27.
