Waxahachie ISD budget workshop lays out $3.5 million staff-pay proposal; board directs staff to seek improvements

Waxahachie Independent School District trustees approved a staff compensation plan on a 5–1 vote after a multi-hour budget workshop in which staff described new state allotments and a draft pay package that district leaders say would keep the budget balanced.

District staff presented the budget workshop as the third in a series and centered the discussion on staff compensation, which the presenter said was the “big one” left unresolved after recent state legislative changes. The presentation laid out newly available state funding streams and how the district would use them to pay staff increases.

The district projected new state revenue from multiple allotments: an increase in the basic allotment worth roughly $55 per average daily attendance (ADA) (estimated yield about $610,000); a staff-retention allotment of $45 per ADA (about $500,000); a school-safety allotment increased to $20 per ADA plus about $33,540 per campus (estimated yield about $800,000); and a basic-cost allotment of $106 per ADA (estimated about $1,000,187). Taken together (excluding the teacher-retention allotment), staff said those items total roughly $3.1 million in new state funding.

Using those revenues plus about $300,000 net savings…