Teacher Incentive Allotment Series: Compensation Plan Language

Districts are in varying levels of readiness for developing local teacher designation systems to access funding from the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) in House Bill 3. Whether or not your district creates a designation system, you need to be prepared to deal with TIA funding that will follow a teacher who comes to your district designated or with national board certification.

The Compensation and Employment Contracts document in the HR Library has been updated to include new language that school boards can use when adopting their compensation plan for 2020–2021.

Compensation Plan

When adopting your compensation plan for 2020–2021, you can add the following language to help protect the district against any issues arising from the constitutional prohibition on gifts of public funds and limitations on increasing pay of contract staff after the school year has begun.

The Board of Trustees may adjust the compensation reflected in this plan as necessary to utilize funds available under the Teacher Incentive Allotment which were not known at the time this plan was initially adopted. Distribution of Teacher Incentive Allotment funds will comply with state law and Texas Education Agency guidance.

In addition to adding this language when the board adopts the compensation plan, you also must have a plan in place for distributing the funding once received by the state. While you’re required to spend 90 percent of the funding on teacher pay on the campus where the designated teacher teaches, will you grant 90 percent of the funds to that designated teacher? Or 100 percent? Or will you distribute it among teachers in some other way?

Districts would be wise to have a tentative plan in place before the school year starts to avoid having to make these decisions on the fly.