Bay City ISD trustees approve 2% raise for support and administrative staff amid $6.2M deficit

Bay City Independent School District Board of Trustees voted 5–1 to approve a 2% compensation increase for support staff and administrative support, trustees said at a regularly scheduled meeting (date not specified).

The action, moved at the meeting by Trustee 1 and seconded by a second speaker, passed with five votes in favor and one opposed, board members said during roll call. The board also discussed and moved forward on classroom 012 and librarian compensation earlier in the meeting; the transcript records a motion to approve that item but does not record a vote tally for it.

The issue mattered for board members because the district is operating with a multimillion-dollar deficit and the raise will increase that shortfall. “If we do a 1% to all staff … it's increasing our deficit by 143,956,” said Staff member (Speaker 1), summarizing the budget office’s estimate of the one-percent scenario after removing federally funded positions and food-service staff from the calculation. Trustee 3 warned about the optics of larger increases: “based on the deficit I would be concerned about the optics of something like 3%,” the trustee said.

Board members and staff…