Q. Can we reduce teacher salaries or stipends if we have a budget deficit?
A. No. For the 2010–11 school year, teachers are entitled to retain the pay raise they received for 2009–10 and advance to the next step on the district’s salary schedule for 2008–09 (see Guidance on teacher pay requirements for 2010–11 in this issue). Hold harmless language was included in the last teacher pay raise bill (H.B. 3646, 81st Texas Legislature) that will continue to protect teacher salaries beyond 2010-11. As long as teachers who were employed during 2010-11 remain employed by the same school district, they will continue to be entitled to a salary equal to the salary they received for the 2010-11 school year. You can read the statutory language in your district’s legal reference policy DEA.
Although the statutory requirements beyond 2010-11 refer to “salary,” an earlier interpretation from then-Commissioner Mike Moses included additional supplements in the salary entitlement. TASB believes that the interpretation below from a TEA letter dated July 8, 1999, would also apply to the current statutory requirements.
“If a district in 1998-99 paid additional supplements for duties that are part of a teacher’s classroom instructional assignment, it must continue paying those supplements if an employee occupies that role. Likewise, a district must continue to apply supplements for graduate degrees or other professional accomplishments as they existed in 1998-99. However, if an employee no longer meets the criteria for a local supplement as it existed in 1998-99, a district need not continue paying the supplement to that employee.”
As a result of these requirements, the only reductions that a district can make in teacher pay are:
The term “salary” generally applies to all payments that are included in a teacher’s monthly paycheck. One-time payments that are made in a lump sum and are clearly defined as such are not included in the term “salary.”
