Today at a special session, the Board of Trustees approved the final 2019-2020 compensation plan for all employees. The state’s required minimum salary increase estimate for Rockwall ISD totaled $1.6 million (per Moak, Casey & Associates); however, Rockwall ISD Board of Trustees exceeded the minimum estimate by allocating $3.3 million for salary increases. As a result of the state legislature’s increased funding for Texas public schools, the Board of Trustees approved a salary increase on average of 3.5% to 4% for teachers, librarians, and nurses, depending on years of experience per House Bill 3. Teachers, librarians, and nurses with less than 5 years’ experience will receive an increase of $2,000, and those with 5 or more years of experience will receive an increase of $2,100. All other RISD staff will receive a 3% pay increase based on the midpoint of their respective paygrade. The starting teacher pay will increase to $53,500. In addition, Trustees continue to support a $361 monthly contribution toward health insurance premiums for all employees, which is a substantial employee benefit when compared to other districts.
For homeowners, the Rockwall ISD property tax rate is projected to lower by 7 cents in 2020 due to the recently passed House Bill 3. Finally, we are also pleased that we are meeting our 2015 Bond payments without any additional increase to our debt service tax rate.
We appreciate our RISD Board of Trustees and their continued support of our teachers and staff. We also want to recognize the work of our legislators, who supported public education funding this past session enabling additional compensation for our hard-working RISD educators.
