Understanding Personnel Salaries in District Budgets

Personnel salaries in GCISD currently account for 86% of the total budget. This can be a positive indicator to the taxpayers of the community that the district is using as much of the district funds as possible in salaries.  A further breakdown indicates that most of that salary allocation is paying for teachers.  On the other hand, since most of the district budget is heavily invested in payroll, which is a fixed cost, there is not much opportunity for trimming the budget without cutting positions.  Comparing GCISD salaries to those of the surrounding districts, the salaries are in the middle of the comparison charts.  In addition, the percent of administrative salaries in comparison to other districts is also smaller.  In other words, the administration to teacher ratio in GCISD is much smaller than in other districts.  We are not administrative heavy.

The impact associated with a five percent salary increase for all personnel in GCISD could be catastrophic at this point.  GCISD is going to have to allocate some fund balance resources this year to make the budget balance, depending on what the legislature finally decides to allocate to educational funding.   This dip into fund balance will be required without any type of pay raise for this next school year.  Providing a five percent salary increase would require a greater portion of the fund balance, which would have a negative impact on our district bond ratings and FIRST ratings.   In addition, by providing our personnel with a 5% raise, we would then place ourselves out of the market comparability with surrounding districts.  The NE Tarrant county area could not support this type of market increase.