HOUSTON — The Houston Independent School District announced that due to budget constraints, it won't be able to pay out teacher retention bonuses that were originally included in its plans.
HISD said there were a couple of edits to the Compensation Plan for the upcoming school year due to budget shortcomings.
Initially, HISD was offering $1,000 or $2,000 retention incentives but that's no longer in the plans.
The district is, however, still taking applications for summer school teachers until May 3 and they're eligible to get up to $8,000.
HISD also said it restored stipends for debate coaching that had been "omitted in error."
Starting salaries for first-year teachers at non-New-Education System schools is $64,000 while teachers at NES schools have an average salary of $82,000, according to the district.
HISD sent us the following statement on Friday.
"HISD is committed to investing in our teachers and leaders. That's why we raised salaries for teachers across the District. In addition to these raises, we had hoped to provide retention incentives for all returning teachers. Yet as we worked to untangle the financial challenges created by the loss of federal Covid funding -- and the fact that so many of HISD’s ongoing salary and program expenses had been inappropriately funded with this one-time ESSER money -- we found it is simply not possible to offer the retention incentives without directly impacting students and classrooms.
The Draft Compensation Plan released earlier this year, is just that -- a draft. It is subject to change until the School Board passes the District budget in June. Other adjustments have also been made. For example, the plan was recently edited to include stipends for debate team coaches, which were previously omitted in error."