Edinburg school trustees approved about 4% midpoint increases for employees across the board and an increase to planned stipends that appeared to be unexpected at their meeting Tuesday.
Trustees set the pay increase at 4.1% for teachers and nurses and 4% for other employees.
That $2,350 increase will put the starting salary for teachers at $57,000 and the starting salary for nurses at $57,250.
Before voting, Superintendent Mario Salinas told the board he wouldn’t recommend the district approving salary increases much higher than 4%.
“I don’t believe that 5% is doable for us, we’d be playing with fire,” he said. “That being said, next budget year we may not be able to do 4%, so I want to say that. Maybe less — 3%, or 2%. Four percent tonight I think is something we could do, but at the same time, next budget year we may not be able to do 4%.”
Salinas said teachers have never received a raise as high as 4% at the district. Trustees roundly lauded that raise and the teachers who will benefit from it.
“They are working 24/7,” Board President Dominga “Minga” Vela said. “Planning Saturdays and Sundays. We cannot pay you enough for what you do.”
In contrast to the salary increases, the stipend bump appeared unscripted. The board approved increasing proposed stipends to be paid out of federal ESSER funds to employees later this year to $4,000 as opposed to the $3,000 number being recommended by the district’s administration.
That stipend bump was proposed by Vela.
Coupled with a $500 stipend the board approved and paid out in June, the total winds up at a cool $4,500, uncoincidentally the same stipend payout PSJA ISD bragged about approving for teachers and librarians last week.
“I’ll address the elephant in the room,” Trustee Mike Farias said. “We all know that PSJA’s doing $4,500.”
Farias called that $4,500 PSJA is offering “smoke and mirrors,” offering a tabulation of Edinburg’s incentives that puts it ahead of PSJA even without the increase Vela proposed.
Farias said he was concerned over increasing the stipend payout over Salinas’ recommendation — a concern Trustee Louie Alamia also shared — and cited less fiscally successful districts.
“Again, you have no idea how much we appreciate you and we continue to do it and we want to continue paying you more than anybody else,” Farias told the audience. “At the same time, we have a fiscal responsibility to our taxpayers to continue going forward and not find ourselves having to pass a bond, like McAllen, in order to give their teachers a 1% [raise]. Or out there at La Joya, having to break contracts because they don’t have the money. I don’t want to find Edinburg CISD in that position.”
That concern was perfunctory. Farias and Alamia both voted in favor of the compensation package and stipend increase.
Farias later reached out to The Monitor and said he misspoke and meant to say the voter tax rate election rather than a bond.
Editor’s note: This story was updated Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022, with new information from Farias.