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By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer

With rising costs for fuel and other items, Tyler ISD will have to tighten its belt as it begins to prepare its budget for the next fiscal year, but officials are still planning to propose pay raises for teachers and other employees.

TISD trustees received reports Thursday night during their regular board meeting on finances and possible raises for the next fiscal year from Tosha Bjork, director of financial services, and Sharon Roy, director of human resources.

It could be recommended during budget time to increase starting salaries for teachers, librarians and nurses to $39,500 from $38,000, according to the report.

The recommendation developed by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) also proposed giving a general pay increase of $1,200 to teachers, librarians and nurses at TISD. Some of those employees would also receive market adjustments on top of the $1,200 raise.

Under the recommendation, TISD administrative/professional employees would see a 3 percent general pay increase, as would clerical/paraprofessional employees and auxiliary employees.

Ms. Roy also said she may propose offering signing bonuses to recruit math teachers, who are difficult to recruit.

The TASB report shows that to provide the raises overall, it would cost TISD more than $3.2 million, although Ms. Bjork said that might be slightly lower once positions funded through grants are not counted.

Ms. Bjork presented information Thursday night that showed the district will likely have about $3.4 million in additional revenue to work with as it prepares its upcoming budget to use for items such as raises.

That money would come from several sources, including increasing the maintenance and operations tax rate by one cent to $1.04, where Ms. Bjork said most districts are at, along with receiving additional state funding because of a change in the “Austin yield” and increasing the district’s Weighted Average Daily Attendance (WADA) by 25 students. The increase would also come from a decrease in department budgets for one-time items in the previous year’s budget and salary savings in the budget.

“This money now is available to push into salary increases,” Ms. Bjork told trustees. “Basically we have about $3.4 million available to do what we need to do. … It doesn’t leave us a lot of room to do anything additional.”

She noted other issues such as increased fuel costs.

“It’s just a dilemma to figure out how we’re going to fund that and give raises at the same time,” she said. “We’re having to look at other avenues where we can possibly cut.”

TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said superintendents plan to talk to legislators about fuel costs, transportation costs and utilities.

“This year we believe we’re going to be able to tighten belts and use the additional money that we have for salaries, tighten belts within our budget to cover the increases, but we can’t do that probably more than this year,” Reid said. “After this year, we’re going to be out of options.”

Ms. Bjork explained that because of state legislation, the only way the district earns extra revenue is if its WADA goes up.

“Tax values really don’t matter anymore,” she said. “So when people say, ‘well the property values are going up, you’ll get more money’ — that is not true. It just means we’ll get the same amount because of the way the formula works.”

The Rev. Orenthia Mason, a TISD trustee, said there are some things at the campus level that can be done to help in the efforts to save when it comes to utilities and ways to increase the WADA as well.

Trustee Gene Shull asked that Ms. Bjork provide the board with information about what is spent on fuel costs as well as a comparison of savings in utility costs for an old school versus a replacement of that school.

Reid said the reports presented Thursday were just for information purposes.

The district is only in the beginning stages of its budget preparation process, officials said.

TISD’s leadership team will review budgets in the next couple of weeks. The board will have its first budget workshop likely in June.

Board President Brad Spradlin said, “It really looks based on what you’re telling us tonight that we’ve got some real challenges budget wise for this next year.”

TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said after the meeting that, “the public needs to understand that we’re no different than their households where we have rising inflation and rising fuel costs. We’re having to really tighten down things to make this work. We’re trying diligently not to have to come back to their pockets this year.”

Reid said the district may have no choice in the future unless the state provides some relief.

OTHER ITEMS

The board also approved the 2007-08 amended budget; Board Policy DBB (Local) and FFAC (Local); HVAC renovations at Caldwell Elementary Arts Academy; roof replacement at Caldwell Gym and Caldwell Auditorium; various roofing quotes; digital projector purchase; Destination Reading Spanish software; contract for Math Solutions staff development; purchase of materials for C-Scope math and science; and expansion of Project Lead the Way program for John Tyler High and Boulter Middle schools.

Trustees OK’d gifts and donations, including $10,956 from Owens Elementary PTA to Owens for technology; $10,000 from the Tyler ISD Foundation for TISD Teacher of the Year support; and $11,510.61 from Caldwell PTA for Caldwell Elementary for technology.

The board also heard a monthly financial executive summary, the School Health Advisory Committee annual report and a report on a science laboratory grant program.