By Andy Sevilla

A salary survey of Hays CISD employee pay found that the district’s low wages could come up to market value with a 1.5 percent adjustment, or $1.4 million, according to a report by the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). 

“The biggest issue that you have right now is that in your administrative group, people that have on average ten years of job-specific experience, or job-related experience, are still paid considerably below their range midpoint, which represents market value,” Cindy Clegg, human resources director for TASB, told the Hays CISD school board Monday night.

TASB created a targeted adjustment formula to accelerate employees with experience who are still below the midpoint on their pay range. Based on their formulation it would cost the district $1,398,569 for the pay fixes, Clegg said. 

That $1.4 million represents about 1.5 percent of the district’s $89 million salary budget, which includes teachers. 

The school board has already improved teacher pay gaps, and the proposed fixes would only affect every other employee group. 

“This problem wasn’t created in a year,” Hays Superintendent Mike McKie said Monday night. “It was created over time, similar to our teachers’ salaries. Last year, we adjusted the pay grades, which was a big step.”

But that pay equity adjustment didn’t resolve the low wage problem that has plagued Hays CISD for years. McKie said the pay grade adjustments only put a band-aid on the problem. 

“If we take this next step and address all employee groups, then we’ve addressed every single employee throughout our system,” he said.

Clegg urged the board to try and alleviate compression in employee pay, and to adjust that pay closer to market rates. 

Assistant principals, speech pathologists, diagnosticians, licensed specialists in school psychology and childcare workers are among the district employee groups with the larger pay deviations from market value, according to the TASB report.

McKie said that in the first budget meeting for the upcoming school year, this information would be presented to the school board once again with the goal to address all the employees’ pay needing adjustment.

“If that is something that is doable and workable, that is one way to fix this once and for all,” Clegg told the board. “Hopefully, budget resources will allow, and I think it would go a long way,” adding that if the district granted an additional two or three percent on top of the targeted adjustment, “you could go a long way toward fixing things with that.”