At its June 24 meeting, the SCUCISD Board of Trustees passed the 2025-26 district compensation plan, increasing the pay of all district employees with total expenditures of $6.32 million by the district, according to agenda documents.
The plan included $2,500 and $5,000 HB 2 mandated raises for classroom teachers with three or more years of experience, as well as matching HB 2 raises for roughly 80 employees on the SCUCISD teacher pay scale. The other raises, according to agenda documents, are a 3% raise for teachers with up to two years of experience and a 3% raise for all other employees.
What happened
Raises in the compensation plan started with HB 2 ramifications.
The bill, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on June 4, mandates a $2,500 raise for SCUCISD classroom teachers with three to four years of experience, as well as a $5,000 raise for classroom teachers with five or more years of experience. HB 2 will provide SCUCISD with $4.49 million in funding for the raises, according to agenda documents.
HB 2 using the Texas Education Code definition of the term “classroom teacher” leaves out teacher pay scale employees such as librarians, nurses and instructional coaches. The district’s 2025-26 compensation plan matches the HB 2 raise for these employees at a $430,000 cost for the district.
At a June 10 budget workshop, Chief Financial Officer Brian Moy presented two options, the one chosen by the board and an option to give a 2% raise across the board for teachers and teacher-scale employees.
What they’re saying
Board President Edward Finley said figuring out where the legislature was heading has been a challenge for the district.
“I know it’s been a hard thing to go through this year with all the changes, waiting on legislature to make their final determination and then all of a sudden having to step up and make all those calculations,” Finley said.
Board Vice President Letticia Sever said that she is fine approving a compensation plan giving impacted employees a raise.
“We are taking a leap of faith here with the higher percent ... these discussions that we have are not often times easy, but I think the board can be proud of this compensation plan,” Sever said.
