Board OKs compensation plan

May 21—In the Ector County ISD 2024-25 compensation plan, Executive Director of Human Resources Matthew Spivy said there are new opportunities for teachers to make more money.

ECISD will offer a Teacher with Resident Enhanced Certification Salary Scale, board members heard during their meeting Tuesday. This is for people who have graduated from college or an educator preparation program and complete a full year of teacher residency, Superintendent Scott Muri said.

The certification is expected to be available in September.

The starting salary will be $61,500. After 10 years, it will be $70,000 and a 30 year salary is $80,000.

Certified teacher starting pay is $60,600 for zero years of experience.

The board approved a one-time 3% retention stipend for full-time employees who are returning in 2024-25.

The stipend will be 3% of their base salary to be paid out to full-time employees returning from the 2023-2024 school year in fall 2024.

The average amount paid to teachers would be $1,950 and the average for hourly employees would be $930, Spivy said.

The minimum retention stipend will be $500. This will cover classroom teachers, nurses, librarians, instructional support staff, clerical support staff, auxiliary employees, child nutrition staff, paraprofessional staff, technology, police and administrative professional staff, according to supplemental agenda information.

Teacher Stackable Compensation includes the ability to earn up to $32,000 via the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA).

In May, 353 ECISD teachers earned $3.1 million in May 2024.

There is also the ability to earn up to $17,000 via Opportunity Culture; the ability to earn up to $15,000 via Leadership for Ector's Accelerated Progress (LEAP/TSL Grant); principal stackable compensation; the ability to earn up to $30,000 via Leadership for Ector's Accelerated

Progress (LEAP/TSL Grant); and the ability to earn up to $25,000 via Principal Incentive Allotment. Payouts are expected in fall 2024, the information said.

Spicy said there were 350 teacher vacancies during hiring season in 2018-19 and there are 36 vacancies in 2023-24.

Chief Financial Officer Deborah Ottmers said the total tax rate for next year is expected to stay at $1.014 per $100 valuation.

The district is planning for a $12 million deficit for next year.

Ottmers said at this point right now, it's looking like $2.5 million of deficit for the current year.

When looking at current calculations, at the end of '23-24, ECISD will have 106 days of fund balance available and at the end of '24-25, they will have 91 days, Ottmers said.

Muri said they originally thought they would have 86 days of fund balance and now they have 91. He said 90 days is the target.

"Keep in mind we have a lot of expenditures that we have to spend the money and we wait to get the money back. We have to have funds available in order to those kinds of things. So for instance, the teacher incentive allotment that we're going to be paying over $3 million for here in a couple of weeks, June 15. We will get that money from the state sometime in September," Ottmers said.

"That's a lot of money to float for several months. That's all part of the financial planning that goes into this bus this we're running," she added.

The district is expected to adopt its budget June 18.

While there won't be any increase in the tax rate, but the values have gone up. Homes on average have increased in value by about 10 percent.

"So even though the (tax) rate is the same, they are going to have increased property tax costs," Ottmers said.

The board also approved hiring Christina Salinas as the new principal of Murry Fly Elementary School and Hector Limon as the principal of Odessa High School.

On a bond udate, last week, the school district took possession of the land that will become the site of the new Career & Technical Education high school. The 37-acre parcel valued at more than $2.8 million was donated by Grow Odessa. The CTE high school planning committee has now met four times, the most recent on April 23, and has made site visits

to CTE Centers in Abilene and Hobbs.

Trustees then received a report on the site visit made by our middle school planning committee. A group of 10 traveled to

Lewisville to see Griffin Middle School, designed by PBK, the same architecture firm that will be designing ECISD's new middle school. On April 19, representatives from Parkhill visited Odessa to see the Transportation Center (both the existing bus barn and the property for the new facility) and the auditorium at Permian High School which will be completely renovated. In the first completed portion of the bond, all of the middle school tennis courts have been resurfaced and are ready for the fall tennis season.

Looking at the budget, a little more than $4.3 million has been spent (1% of the total bond) and about $22.7 million is encumbered (meaning purchase orders have been issued; 5% of the total bond), the board recap said.

The first round of bonds was offered to investors on May 14. All bonds were sold with an average interest rate of 3.77% which is below the estimated (3.84) rate presented to the board in the preliminary financing plan in March. Due to the lower interest rate than anticipated, the payments are expected to be nearly $3 million less over the life of the bonds. A second bond sale will take place on June 5.

A Request for Qualifications for a Third-Party Oversight firm has now closed and a recommendation is expected in June. ECISD Operations is also working with Gordian on contract language for Priority I and Priority II items, with Gordian performing a skilled trade vendor outreach.

Trustees voted 7-0 to approve purchases over $50,000 related to the bond. The three items on this list are $4.8 million for geotechnical and materials testing services for the current and future builds ECISD may have for Bond 2023 projects, and $800,000 for the purchase of property on South Tripp Avenue for the new middle school.

The district is purchasing two additional acres for the middle school project. And, $5.9 million for Construction Manager at Risk to manage the construction projects, and to act as consultant during the design and planning phase.

The board voted 7-0 to approve switching banks from The Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company, N.A. as the paying agent/registrar for two outstanding series of bonds to UMB Bank, N.A.

In a discussion about the strategic plan, Muri said 28 percent of the class of 2017 completed some form of post secondary education.

Muri said the district receives the data from the College Clearinghouse. The only institutions that report to them are public institutions.

The military also doesn't report if students have completed four years, so the only way the district knows is if the students tell them.