CCISD trustees approve use of impact aid funds toward employee retention incentive

By BRITTANY FHOLER

Cove Leader-Press

The Copperas Cove Independent School District Board of Trustees approved providing a one-time retention incentive of $1,500 for full-time staff and $750 for part-time staff during their regular meeting Tuesday evening. 

The retention incentive will be seen on the staff’s December paychecks. The funding for the incentive comes due to changes in the budget following the receipt of two Impact Aid funding checks, according to Superintendent Joe Burns. 

The total amount budgeted for the incentive is $2.1 million, according to the budget amendment request found on the board of trustees’ agenda online. 

Burns explained how the funding came about for the incentive.

“We had a busy budget season this year, and there's some things that we worked through,” Burns said on Tuesday evening. “One of those was tax compression. When you compress taxes, it reduces the amount of local taxes that are generated in the budget for Copperas Cove ISD, and the other thing that we worked through was our [state] legislature and Governor is sitting on top of the Rainy Day Fund with billions and billions of dollars, and not releasing any of those funds to Texas public schools to help offset pay increases. In lieu of that information, we did not recommend a pay increase from the board to begin this school year. 

“However, we received two checks for previous years’ settle-up for Impact Aid that were significant for our budget, and we're requesting that at this time, the board approve a one-time incentive for staff.”

Impact Aid is a federal program that provides funding in the form of grants and reimburses school districts for the lost revenue associated with the presence of nontaxable Federal property, such as military installations like Fort Cavazos, Indian Trust, Treaty and Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) Lands, federal low-rent housing facilities or federal properties like national parks and Army Corps of Engineers projects and federal facilities such as national laboratories and VA hospitals. It is tied to students who live on these different properties. 

CCISD has seen its share of Impact Aid drop over the years due to the decline in the number of students who are connected to active military. 

The retention incentive applies to employees who are hired before Sept. 1, 2024 and through Dec. 20, 2024, according to the Resolution attached to the agenda on the district’s website. 

Burns shared that he would not be receiving the incentive since he had put in his retirement resignation already. 

The district will be covering the Medicare and TRS deductions of the check, which means that employees should see the entire amount on their December paycheck. 

Per the addendum, a part-time employee is an employee who works at least three hours per day but less than five hours per day. A full-time employee works at least five hours per day. 

The board also approved their consent agenda which featured several items for purchase exceeding $25,000 using budgeted funds, including the purchase of 64 interactive panels for Copperas Cove High School, Copperas Cove Junior High School, S.C. Lee Junior High School and Crossroads High School for a total of $166,313.60 and the purchase of 30 new AED machines to replace ones that are aging out and to supplement areas on campuses in need of more, for a total of $57,795.00; the replacement of ductwork at Lea Ledger Auditorium for $127,445.00; and the purchase of 30 computer towers and 24-inch monitors for the CTE Lab at S.C. Lee Junior High for $43,976.70. 

Another purchase is for four 77-passenger buses to replace aging buses in the fleet, which is funded approximately 60 percent by a grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The new buses will meet the stricter emissions guidelines and will have seatbelts and air conditioning. The grant will cover approximately $351,288.00 of the total purchase price of $607,940.00, leaving the district’s share to be $256,652.00 after the district applies for the reimbursement.

The next largest purchase is for the installation of security fencing at CCHS, for a total of $548,629.95. 

“One of the guidelines under Texas School Safety Center as a result of the passage of school safety measures by the legislature is that you have to complete a number of Tier One safety procedures in school districts,” Burns said. “We've got fences in lots of places, but all that fencing is not six-foot tall, and it's not all interconnected. Texas School Safety Center and TEA says that all security fencing at school districts has to be non-scalable, six-feet tall fencing. Some fencing installations have already been made this year at Williams- Ledger Elementary, at Fairview-Jewell Elementary. We've had some at the back maintenance department in Fairview-Jewell, and so the next project is the high school, trying to get that six-foot fence all the way around.”

Burns added that this quote is for the high school only, and this is just for phase one. 

The board also approved a request for the district to apply for a Low Attendance Day Waiver from TEA for the low attendance seen on September 13, when social media threats prompted families to keep their students home from school. 

Specifically, S.C. Lee Junior High School and J.L. Williams/Lovett Ledger Elementary School experienced a low attendance rate.  S.C. Lee’s attendance was 81.35 percent compared to their 96.34 percent daily average from the previous school year. Williams/Ledger’s attendance was 81.44 percent compared to their 97.10 percent daily average from the previous school year.