AUSTIN, Texas — Austin ISD board members voted on Thursday to approve the budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year, which includes an employee compensation plan. The plan was created in collaboration with Education Austin and determined that staff would get a 2% pay increase if the district hits its enrollment goal of 77,351 students by October.
"They work so hard and when 87% of the budget is about people, you have to make sure that you invest in those people. It's so important, really. It was just such an amazing job that this is just a step towards showing the appreciation of the district and the union have towards the workers," said Education Austin President Ken Zarifis.
The agreement also includes:
- A one-time $1,000 payment for active, regular status, benefits-eligible staff who were employed on May 31, 2021, and remain employed through Aug. 31, 2021.
- Increasing teachers’ and librarians’ starting salary to $51,150.
- Increasing the district’s minimum wage from $13 an hour to $13.50.
- Creating a committee to look at addressing compensation inequities.
For some context, for the 2019-20 school year, AISD staff got a 6% raise and that happened after Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 3. Austin ISD said that was the largest raise teachers in that district have ever seen.
Below is Austin ISD's historical salary data:
"The raise would apply to the midpoint of the pay range for each position, which means someone on the lower end of a pay range could get a pay increase greater than 2%, and the opposite would hold true for someone making more than the midpoint salary," states AISD on its website. "Applying a pay raise to the midpoint combats what HR professionals call 'salary compression.' Over time, applying pay increases equally can blur the differences between pay ranges, making it hard to manage large organizations such as a school district."
"Overall, when you look at the whole package, really considering the difficult times we're in, we think it's a very successful package. We're glad the district was willing to do it and work closely with us to see that employees work were rewarded for their hard work last year and what's going to happen this year," said Zarifis.
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