Despite confusion on how public school funding could be impacted by recently passed state legislation, North East Independent School District board of trustees approved a $584 million budget and compensation plan for the upcoming school year.
About 87% of the 2025-26 budget, adopted during a special board meeting June 19, will go toward staff pay and benefits. That part of NEISD’s budget grew since last year, because of the passage of House Bill 2, a public school funding bill requiring districts to raise salaries for teachers with three or more years of experience.
The district also plans to increase school meal prices except for reduced breakfast meals.
“We’ll be spending more [this year] than 2024-25, as we have the compensation plan driving the bulk of that,” said Susie Lackorn, a financial analyst for NEISD, during a June 16 budget session.
Last year, the district adopted a smaller budget of $549.7 million.
Even though the state’s bill funds the raises through something called the Teacher Retention Allotment, school districts are still on the hook for implementation costs and aren’t sure exactly how much money they’ll get from the state or how to adapt to changes under HB 2, along with several other education bills passed during the 89th Texas Legislative Session.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Lackorn added.
The adopted budget includes a proposed shortfall of more than $40 million, but district officials projected NEISD’s actual deficit to equal roughly $18 million for the 2025-26 cycle.
Because school districts have to budget under the assumption that 100% of staff positions and classrooms are filled, the adopted deficit is bigger than what the district actually expects it to be, Lackorn explained.
Currently, the district has an enrollment slightly under 49,000.
Until the Texas Education Agency rolls out rules for the pieces of legislation affecting schools, the district has to budget conservatively and under the assumption it won’t get much support from the state, a point NEISD Superintendent Sean Maika has stressed during several budget talks.
“We’ve never gone into a deficit thinking someone was going to come to our rescue,” Maika said during the budget discussions, a sentiment he also shared during a February meeting where trustees approved the consolidation of three campuses as a cost-saving measure.
If the state did away with the teacher retention allotment in the future, Maika said the district won’t be able to absorb the cost and keep teacher raises.
Under HB 2, teachers could make up to $5,000 more a year in school districts, like NEISD, with large student enrollment. But other employees were “left out,” Maika said during a previous meeting.
While HB 2 does include an auxiliary staff retention allotment in the form of $45 per student that school districts can divide how they like, there is much more state money allocated for teacher raises.
NEISD’s compensation package for the 2025-26 school year also includes raises for staff positions districts aren’t required to pay for under the new bill.
Teachers with one to two years of experience will receive salary raises of $1,000 and $1,500 respectively, and the district will raise its starting teacher pay to $57,500.
All other positions, including employees currently paid on a teacher pay scale who don’t meet the state definition of “classroom teacher” — such as librarians, counselors and nurses — will receive a general 1% pay increase.
The 1% bump is also for auxiliary staff, paraprofessionals and teacher assistants. Employees who aren’t teachers and don’t receive raises greater than 1% will also get one-time $615 retention bonuses in November on the condition they keep working with the district through the end of the fall semester.
Trustees approved the compensation plan before adopting a budget, expressing frustration with state lawmakers for not releasing more funds to increase pay for non-teacher staff who also support students.
“Feels like they want us to fail,” trustee Terri Chidgey said.
Agreeing, trustee Tracie Shelton said it was necessary to raise salaries for “wraparound services” staff — not just increase teacher pay — to keep qualified teachers in the classroom.
While the legislative budget predictions for the 2026 fiscal year show North East ISD could receive $30.8 million from the state, the district expects to spend about $19.6 million of it on teacher raises $5.2 million on non-teacher raises.
“There’s a reason the windows don’t open here, because some of us would jump out,” Maika joked during the meeting that the board approved raises. “We’re having to recalibrate and readjust… it’s going to hurt — it always does — but we are going to figure out a way to thrive in this new era.”
