The Aldine ISD Board of Trustees approved pay raises for all employees during a special called meeting on Monday, June 24. The raises are part of the district’s 2019-20 budget.
Starting next year, teachers will receive a 7 or 8 percent increase, depending on their experience levels. Teachers with 0-5 years of experience will receive a 7 percent salary increase, while teachers with six or more years of experience will receive an 8 percent salary increase. Counselors, librarians, and nurses will follow the same pattern. Those with 0-5 years of experience will receive a 7 percent raise, and counselors, librarians, and nurses with six or more years of experience will receive an 8 percent raise.
Trustees also approved raising the salary for first-year teachers from $52,500 to $56,000 for the 2019-20 school year.
“I am extremely grateful to our Board for rewarding our hard-working staff with much-deserved pay raises,” said Aldine ISD Superintendent Dr. LaTonya M. Goffney. “The proposals presented by the district all focused on our goal of increasing salaries to ensure we can attract and retain the best staff to serve our students.”
Other district staff including principals, assistant principals, custodians, paraprofessionals, and police officers will receive a 4.5 percent raise. District administrators will receive a 3 percent pay increase. To ensure Aldine ISD is competitive across the board special attention was paid to bus drivers and child nutrition employees. The starting salaries for bus drivers was increased to $17.65 and a cafeteria specialist will start at $12.68.
Additionally, all district employees will receive a one-time retention bonus this fall. Professional staff will receive $1,000 and support staff will receive $500.
There will not be any changes to medical insurance premiums this school year.
Chief Financial Officer Dr. Tamika Alford-Stephens and her team have been researching the changes to school finance funding throughout the legislative session and worked to ensure that the district’s budget included the priorities of raising salaries, funding new academic programs and initiatives designed to increase student achievement while staying fiscally responsible.
House Bill 3, which was signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in early June provides Aldine with a substantial increase in state funding for the 2019-20 school year. Stipulations for the funding included increasing pay for teachers, nurses, librarians and counselors.
“Throughout the legislative session, we were cautiously optimistic about the funding projections,” said Goffney. ”In the end, our state legislators made education a top priority and for that we are grateful.”
The complete 2019-20 budget, which is just over $647M, provides funding for all instructional programs, district operations, and student activities.
During the meeting, the Board of Trustees also approved a proposed tax rate of 1.347115. The tax rate will not be officially adopted until the certified tax roll is received from the Harris County Appraisal District in late August.
Source/Photo credit: AldineISD
