At its June 10 meeting, Chief Financial Officer Brian Moy presented two options to the SCUCISD board of trustees to increase the pay of tenured employees not covered under mandated raises from the approval of House Bill 2. The two plans will match the mandated raises or provide a 2% pay increase for those not covered under HB 2.
In case you missed it
HB 2, signed in both the Texas Senate and House of Representatives on June 1, would provide $3.7 billion for teacher pay raises across the state, including $3.97 million at SCUCISD, according to previous reporting by Community Impact.
The bill specifies that only those defined as a "classroom teacher" with three or more years of experience by the Texas Education Code are applicable for raises. Those with three to four years of experience in districts with over 5,000 students, such as SCUCISD, would receive a $2,500 raise, while those with five or more years of experience would earn a $5,000 raise.
Approximately 93 teachers would receive the $2,500 increase, which is an average salary raise of 4.3% and approximately 750 teachers are subject to the $5,000 raise, which is an average salary increase between 6.9% and 8.6%, according to the presentation.
Due to the classroom teacher specification, the mandated raises exclude roughly 80 employees on the SCUCISD teacher pay scale, such as librarians, nurses and instructional coaches. Moy said that the specific definition leaving out some employees is a consistent philosophy by state legislators.
"Every time there's a bill, even if they won't admit it, in the backroom there's always someone to say how can we write the bill to fit the dollar amount we can afford," Moy said.
What's new
The first scenario would see all teacher scale employees with at least three years of experience given the same raises as HB 2, along with a 2% raise for teachers with two or less years of experience. This scenario would cost $659,000, and would cost a total of $1.37 million when adding in raises for instructional aides, other campus professionals, non-campus administration, custodians and auxiliary staff, according to the presentation.
The second option would give the 2% raise across the board for teachers and teacher scale employees, costing $338,000 and a total of $1.05 million when factoring in increases for the other employee groups, according to the presentation.
What they're saying
Trustee Dan Swart said if the 2% option is what the district could currently afford then they could commit to another future raise on top of the 2% if a voter-approved tax rate election, or VATRE were to pass in the fall.
“The people who are only getting 2% have a commitment from us that when the money is available, a chunk of it will be earmarked for them. I think that would address the issue of us not making promises we can’t keep, but still being able to make a contingent promise assuming certain monies come our way," Swart said.
If successful, the VATRE could grant a greater raise in the 2026-27 fiscal year if the 2% raise option was selected, Moy said.
Next steps
The 2025-26 compensation plan will be presented to the board for final approval on June 24, Moy said.
