SAN ANTONIO — Some full-time employees working at the Northside Independent School District, aren't making enough to live. The union, Northside AFT has been pushing for pay raises, without any luck.
In January 2023, NISD approved raises for four different categories of support staff, including child nutrition, transportation, custodial, and instructional assistants. However, not everyone was included. According to Northside AFT, nearly two thousand employees who work in those categories were excluded from those raises.
"The information that we've now been given is that it was all based on vacancy rates and the high vacancy rates and the specific job categories that were picked," said Melina Espiritu-Azocar, the president of Northside AFT. "However, we continue to work from from a space that there should have been an equitable pay increase across all job categories, given that that they weren't giving huge hourly increases."
In summer 2023, all NISD employees across the district received a three percent raise. Despite that increase, Espiritu-Azocar argues, a pay gap still exists.
"We have folks making under $20,000 a year," she said. "I mean, this raise to them is everything. It means that they have a little bit extra to support their families. It's not a kind of raise that would allow them to do anything extravagant except live their lives, and they deserve that."
Northside AFT filed a grievance, that took over a year to be heard in front of the school board. At Tuesday's school board meeting, the Northside ISD school board denied the grievance. Some of the pay raise requests, as little as twenty-five cents an hour.
"It's incredibly disappointing," Espiritu-Azocar said. "Our members are disappointed. The morale for them is as low because it to them they feel like they have been disrespected. So what we will do is work, continue to prioritize their needs. We're going to continue to push for a living wage for all support staff across the district, and that will continue to be a priority."
Northside ISD released this statement in response to the school board's decision:
"The NISD Board of Trustees heard a grievance presented to them by the Northside AFT regarding a compensation decision made by the Board in January 2023. The decision at that time was to provide a compensation increase to targeted classified and auxiliary employee groups as a means of recruiting and retaining employees. These targeted groups had higher vacancy rates and were deemed more difficult to staff. The grievance sought an equal compensation increase across the board for all classified and auxiliary groups, to include retroactive pay. The Board voted to deny the grievance.
NISD values all of its employees and recruitment and retention will continue to be a priority as well as competitive compensation. However, budgetary constraints will continue to be a concern. In April, the Board will be analyzing revenue estimates associated with projected enrollment and attendance as well as begin exploring compensation plans for next year."