AISD Teachers Keep Planning Time; Admin Layoffs Likely

AISD Headquarters (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Teachers prevailed in another dispute with their administration over staffing and finances at last week's Austin ISD Board of Trustees meeting. Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde told trustees she planned to veer away from a proposed schedule adjustment that would cut planning time for teachers in half. The controversial plan would have required secondary school educators to teach seven of eight class periods in each day, instead of the current six, as a way to close the district's growing budget deficit, currently sitting at $62.2 million.

"Seven out of eight is not palatable," Elizalde said, pointing to vocal criticism of the proposal the district has received from educators, parents, and others at numerous board meetings. "It's not something that can be sustained even for just a year." She said the intention of the plan had been to avoid layoffs, which will be necessary in lieu of adopting 7-of-8.

Under the district's new budget proposal, presented by AISD Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Ramos, 250 positions from the district's Central Office will be eliminated. "It sounds fine, as long as you're not one of the 250, but everyone in this room is going to know someone that's one of the 250," Elizalde said. In order to have a balanced budget when the next fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the layoffs will occur before the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, as opposed to being phased over several years.

The district says it's already shaved $23.6 million in cost savings from its payroll (which accounts for 86% of the budget) by evaluating and eliminating vacant positions, implementing a hiring freeze, leveling educator positions, and changing its in-district policy for travel and cellphone allowance. Even so, Elizalde said, providing compensation increases is a priority.

For the current school year, teachers missed out on an annual raise because AISD did not meet its target enrollment. According to the budget plan laid out by Ramos, hourly pay for classified employees such as bus drivers would increase to a minimum of $16 per hour; teacher base pay would increase by $1,000, and salaries above that would increase by 2%.

Although the sale of some AISD property is still on the table, Elizalde said that would be "kicking the can down the road" with one-time revenue gains. To structurally balance the budget, revenue generated by overall enrollment and average daily attendance funding from the state has to align with expenses, given that more than half the district's local property tax revenue is kicked back to the state through recapture payments – a number that goes up when AISD enrollment goes down. Neither of those metrics is going in the right direction at the moment; in addition to its declining enrollment, AISD faced challenges in January meeting attendance minimums amidst the Omicron COVID surge. Ramos told trustees that average daily attendance throughout the month was only slightly above 80%; the district's goal is 90%.

Both Elizalde and Ramos described the budgetary process as "fluid," with several changes expected to the plan before it's finalized in June for trustee approval. Ramos will update the board and community monthly between now and then; even with the details still in flux, though, the Education Austin employee union views the abandonment of 7-of-8 as a "huge win."

One of those details, and quite a major one, is how much AISD will have to pay via recapture to help subsidize education in property-poor districts across Texas. (Austin is the largest contributor by far to the "Robin Hood" system enacted in 1993 after the existing school-finance system was held to violate the Texas Constitution.) Ramos currently estimates the price tag for 2022-23 at $761 million, a figure that's increased by $52 million since last summer; he told trustees the district is looking at ways to get that number reduced, such as with an early­-payment discount.