HISD pay raises too small, trustees say
Two threaten to reject budget; Carranza offers other incentives
Two Houston ISD trustees said they will likely vote against the district’s budget if teachers and staff don’t get larger pay raises than proposed by the new superintendent.
Trustees Rhonda Skillern-Jones and Jolanda Jones pushed back Thursday against the district’s plan to spend $26.92 million on increasing teacher and staff salaries, insisting it was not enough to stay competitive with neighboring districts.
HISD finance officials had asked the board how it should divvy up that amount among teachers, bus drivers, hourly employees and principals. Officials said it would cost $24 million to give teachers a 3 percent raise, even though teachers unions and others have called for a 5 percent raise.
“We haven’t agreed as a board that this $26 million is OK, that this $26 million is all we can spend on salaries,” Skillern-Jones said at a board meeting on the budget Thursday. “We’re not supportive of this budget. I’m not sure it’s going to pass.”
Board members are scheduled to vote next Thursdayon the nearly $2 billion budget for the 2017-18 school year.
Biggest sticking point
Pay increases have been the biggest sticking point in Houston ISD’s effort to adopt a budget this month. Budget officials have not called for any overall tax increases on property owners, instead lessening the amount of taxes collected for debt interest payments and increasing the amount it will receive for maintenance and operations.
Superintendent Richard Carranza said the budget does provide incentives to keep teachers in the Houston ISD, including stipends for teachers who volunteer to work in highneeds schools, and ensures no employee will see an increase in out-of-pocket health care costs.
“As we actually looked at the numbers in terms of stability, it became more of a conversation about this is where we are in our region, this is a pot of money we have for salary raises, how do we distribute that pot of money,” Carranza said.
Carranza added that any salary increases would be “a true raise in take-home pay this year” because teachers will not have to pay more for benefits.
When Trustee Holly Vilaseca asked what the district could do to put more money toward pay raises, Carranza said it would likely involve cutting existing jobs and positions, as they represent the biggest component of the district’s budget.
But Trustee Jolanda Jones said she would vote against any budget that does not include a 5 percent raise for teachers and increase the district’s minimum hourly wage to at least $12.
“If teachers don’t get a 5 percent raise, I’m not voting for it” Jones said. “A 5 percent raise wouldn’t make us the best-paying in the area, but we’re the biggest district in the state, seventh-biggest in the country. We should have the best salaries (for teachers) in the state.”
Special ed funding
Trustee Diana Davila said the district can’t spend money on raises it doesn’t have.
“I don’t think there’s anyone on this board who doesn’t want to give teachers a 5 percent raise,” Davila said. “But it’s about what’s feasible. You have to stay within the budget.”
Trustee Anne Sung also raised questions about the district’s spending on special education, which has been a controversial topic since a Chronicle investigation found that Houston ISD and hundreds of school districts across the state denied thousands of students special education services at the Texas Education Agency’s behest.
District officials had recommended creating five new positions within the special education department, but none of them appeared to be funded on the budget presented to board members on Thursday.
Carranza said it’s likely that he could fund new special education positions through the superintendent fund, which has about $5 million, at some point during the school year. But with all of the constraints on this year’s budget, Carranza said reorganizing the department made more sense than to throw more money at it. Among the chief budget pressures is HISD’s looming recapture payment, which could cost the district between $77.5 million and $137 million in state-mandated fees to help subsidize districts that collect less in local property taxes.