Employees of the McAllen Independent School District will have a little extra money in their pockets by the time spring rolls around.
The McAllen ISD Board voted 6-1 Monday to approve accelerating the payment of $2,000 retention stipends for district employees to March 11, finally resolving the hot button issue for the board.
Made up of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III funds, those stipends were previously earmarked to be paid out to all full-time employees in two $1,000 sums, one in December of 2022 and one a year later.
The district paid out a $3,000 retention stipend in the same vein in December.
The board originally stalled the stipend acceleration when it was proposed by administration in late January, citing increased employee exposure to COVID-19 during the Omicron surge and occupational stress related to it.
At the time, the board balked at the proposal, expressing concern over a lack of consideration on the topic and concerns over the acceleration being used as a way to obviate the district’s lack of a COVID leave policy.
The board heard the first reading of a policy change Monday that provided five additional local leave days, its solution to the district’s lack of COVID leave.
Those days will not be specifically tied to the coronavirus and that policy change will require two readings. It will come back to the board Feb. 28.
Trustee Debbie Crane-Aliseda was the board’s sole dissenter for accelerating stipends Monday.
Skeptical of that March payout date from the start, Crane-Aliseda has consistently argued against the payout on the grounds that it won’t actually accomplish the goal of retaining teachers in the long run.
Crane-Aliseda added another prong to her ultimately doomed argument Monday:
“Giving $2,000 to a receptionist who was hired three weeks ago that answers the phone in the textbook warehouse — who was not here during the pandemic, who did not turn their dining room table into a classroom — giving them $2,000, that will retain teachers? Giving $2,000 to (an) administrator that already makes $30,000 more than a teacher — that will retain teachers? How?” she asked. “Please do not misunderstand me, I appreciate and value every single MISD employee, we are a team and we need every single member of our team to bring it, but not every single member of our team is paid correctly.”
Crane-Aliseda certainly seemed to have done her homework. She passed out papers to trustees and Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez that she said contained proposals for six stipend payout scenarios and pleaded for more time to discuss the issue.
“I give you these scenarios not to go through each one today, not to discuss them, but merely to show you we need to pump the brakes,” she said. “We need to slow down, we need to remember that we are looking at a budget shortfall in the payroll budget of $10 million. And we need to keep in mind…the huge disparity in what a teacher is paid and what an administrator is paid.”
Crane-Aliseda even suggested the possibility of giving all of the retention funds to teachers, which she said would more than double that $2,000 payout and argued may actually convince teachers to stay with the district long term.
Trustees were not swayed by those arguments, even the ones who weren’t big fans of the acceleration.
Board President Sam Saldivar said he would have left the stipend timeline the way it had originally been scheduled, saying that timeline could have let the district use the money to address pandemic stresses down the road more strategically.
Almost a month’s worth of attention on the topic seemed to convince Saldivar that that genie would no longer be rebottled.
“But this is already out. This is — the horse has done left the barn and everybody is expecting it,” he said.
Others on the board were more stridently in favor of the March payout. Trustee Marco Suarez said he felt that money could be critically important to employees right now.
“I think it’s money that many of our employees need because of unforeseen circumstances, whether their family was ill, whether they were ill,” he said.
Suarez said the move would help the district be competitive with surrounding districts and expressed doubt over cutting paraprofessionals or administrators out of the stipend payments.
“This is not just about teachers,” he said. “Although they are an integral part, we are a team and every single part of this team is what allows us to achieve the ratings that we have, the success that we have. The reason why people are coming into our district is because our bus drivers get our kids to school, because our cafeteria workers make sure that we have a hot meal, because our maintenance people make sure that our air conditioners or heaters are working,” Suarez said, also listing secretaries, nurses and administrators.
“When you look at administrators and administration, you know, the hours that they put in are tough as well.”
