HISD trustees amend $1.9B budget to increase wages
It’s still unclear how district plans to pay for resulting deficit
All Houston ISD teachers will receive raises and every district employee will earn a $14 minimum wage after five school board members pushed through a $1.9 billion spending plan for 2019-2020, overruling Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan’s calls for a balanced budget and tighter spending.
In a packed board room populated by dozens of educators and support staff, trustees voted 5-1 late Thursday to boost the salaries of teachers and many other educators by 3.5 percent to 8 percent, depending on experience levels, while also upping the minimum wage by $2 per hour. Nearly all support staff earning less than $75,000 will receive an additional 3.5 percent, while all non-teachers earning more than $75,000 will get no salary increase.
“It’s a victory,” said Wretha Thomas, president of the Houston Educational Support Personnel, a union of about 1,000 HISD employees, many of them among the district’s lowest-paid. “Now, people will be able to put food on their table, put gas in their car, take their kids to the movies.”
The budget passed by trustees contains an estimated deficit of $15 million to $20 million. It is not immediately clear how the district plans to cover the shortfall. The money likely will come from reduced spending, reserve funds or money the district does not use during the year. Trustees stipulated that district officials could not lay off employees to eliminate any deficit — which Lathan had threatened to do if the board did not pass a balanced budget.
Trustees spent six hours haggling over the budget Thursday, largely focusing on the minimum wage proposal opposed by Lathan. Supporters argued the increase provides a much-needed boost to the district’s lower-paid staff, while Lathan said the district could not afford the roughly $18 million needed to increase the minimum
wage by $2 per hour.
The budget back-and-forth came as HISD faced a June 30 deadline to pass the district’s spending plan. The budget negotiations took a combative turn in the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, as Lathan refused calls from trustees to tweak her compensation proposal.
Trustees Diana Dávila, Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, Sergio Lira, Elizabeth Santos and Anne Sung voted for the budget and the increased minimum wage.
“This is a step in ensuring we do value our employees and value our teachers, our support staff and every single person who touches our kids’ lives,” Santos said.
Trustee Sue Deigaard voted against both measures, citing concern about the impact of potential spending cuts on students.
Trustees Wanda Adams, Jolanda Jones and Rhonda Skillern-Jones were not in attendance for the budget votes. Adams and SkillernJones joined the beginning of the meeting but left before the vote due to prior commitments. Both said they tried to re-join the meeting via video conference but were unable because of technical difficulties.
HISD officials had an additional $135 million to spend in the upcoming fiscal year compared to what was expected prior to the passage of a landmark school finance reform bill this spring. State law requires at least 30 percent of the new funding go toward increasing employee salaries.
Lathan proposed a budget that offered raises to all employees ranging from 3.5 percent to 8 percent, with no minimum wage increase. Several trustees, however, criticized her plan for delivering too little money to the district’s support staff and too much to higher-paid administrators. Under the proposal, employees already earning annual salaries exceeding $100,000 would have received raises totaling about $3,500 to $5,000, while minimum-wage staffers would get less than $1,000 more.
Santos on Thursday proposed raising the minimum wage to $14 per hour and requiring offsetting cuts to various departments that are not campus-based. She also proposed nixing any salary increases for non-teachers earning more than $75,000, instead offering those employees a one-time $1,000 bonus and two additional vacation days — which trustees approved.
Santos said district officials could reduce administrative costs and vendor contract spending to pay for the minimum wage increase.
Lathan, who previously had refused Santos’ request to outline how she would cut spending to pay for additional wages, threatened in response that the district would eliminate jobs if forced to raise the minimum wage. Bus drivers, custodians and maintenance employees would have seen the most layoffs, district officials said.
“We will start notifying people next week that there will be layoffs and people will lose jobs to balance the budget” if trustees raise the minimum wage, Lathan said prompting board members to add the provision prohibiting layoffs.
Deigaard voiced concern about the unknown impact of any spending cuts.
“I’m going to need to be assured that this doesn’t compromise a child who is struggling in reading, that this doesn’t compromise a kid who’s behind in their education and needs to get caught up,” she said.
While districts across Texas have passed spending plans with relative ease this month, HISD’s budget process devolved into a standoff between Lathan and the five trustees who approved the budget. The two sides have tangled in an acrimonious power struggle during the past year, which peaked last October with a since-rescinded vote by the five board members to oust Lathan.
With Lathan refusing to budge on her recommendation, trustees made tweaks to her spending plan from the dais and directed administrators to make cuts in specific departments. Typically, school board members do not make major, last-minute changes to budgets or tell administrators how to cut spending from individual departments.
Conversely, superintendents typically work more collaboratively with their boards than Lathan. While school boards often fire intransigent superintendents, a state-appointed official overseeing the district has exercised her legal authority to stop HISD trustees from hiring a permanent leader, citing an ongoing Texas Education Agency investigation into the district.
“This is what happens sometimes when the administration doesn’t listen to the expectations the board has,” Dávila said.
The debate among trustees followed comments from about 30 educators, clergy and community members, the vast majority of whom called for raising the minimum wage. The remaining crowd, many of them teachers and support staff, erupted in cheers at the end of the marathon meeting, celebrating with Santos and Lira in the board room as midnight approached.