As the 2024 elections wrapped up, voters in Austin passed Austin ISD Proposition A, a plan to raise teacher pay, fund campus initiatives and reduce the district’s deficit. The Travis County clerk reported that about 58% of voters voted for the proposition.
“I’m so grateful for the community’s support of Proposition A, which will help the district retain the educators and staff whose talents underpin everything we do at Austin ISD,” AISD Board President Arati Singh told the Austin Monitor.
Although it passed comfortably, not everyone was in favor of the proposition. In addition to the 42% of voters who said no with their votes, 10 former Austin ISD Board of Trustees came out in opposition of the measure because of the amount of the tax increase that the state will claim under the recapture system, which redistributes local property tax revenue from wealthier to poorer districts, those with lower property values.
According to the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union, the average per-pupil spending across the United States is currently $15,633, far more than the $6,160 spent per pupil in Texas, which has not increased in the past four years. Prop A, when set into motion, will increase the tax rate for homeowners, an extra 9 cents per $100 of a property’s taxable value.
The amount of the increase will vary on the value of the homeowner’s residence. According to KUT, a homeowner with a home valued at $553,493 will see an increase of about $34 per month.
According to district estimates, the tax will generate $171 million. Of that total, $130 million will be subject to the state recapture system. The remaining $41 million will be applied to the district’s deficit, which stands at $92 million.
Prop A will raise teacher pay across the district according to a market analysis of teacher pay. Superintendent Matias Segura told KXAN on Election Night that increases will range from less than 1% for new teachers to more than 8% for educators with more than 20 years of experience. The pay increases will be retroactive to the start of the school year.
The district plans to allocate $17.8 million toward increasing pay for most teachers and staff under a plan that will make market adjustments to pay rates with the highest increases going to veteran teachers.
“Before [teachers] go to winter break, they will be paid for all the time back from the start of the fiscal year,” Segura told KXAN. “I’m just so excited that our community showed up for our teachers.”
The district plans to spend $3.2 million on campus programs by funding instructional coaches, content interventionists as well as both special education and mental health support. The district will allocate $20 million to replenish its savings and reduce its deficit.
Senior Stella Proctor voted for the first time this year, in the presidential and local elections. She chose to vote for Prop A, believing that it would be beneficial for both students and teachers.
“I voted for Prop A because I am for increasing teacher pay and increased financial supports for the district,” she said. “As a student I’ve seen that our classrooms could use more funding than we get, and teachers deserve more pay.”
The low rates that AISD and other Texas districts receive per student is oftentimes not enough to pay for basic necessities, and some teachers have to pay for supplies out of their own pockets. Several teachers will have jobs outside of their teaching job, on the weekends, to make a little extra, a fact Proctor has witnessed firsthand.
“I have both worked with teachers and substitutes in my restaurant job, and have heard about how teachers end up having to take other jobs to support themselves, or their family,” she said.
“I don’t feel like that’s fair considering the immense amount of work that teachers do, so it motivated me to vote for Prop A. As someone who is considering being a teacher after college, I feel that a well-funded education system is a wholly positive thing.”
