Austin Community College District (ACC) will submit its final 2023 budget proposal to Trustees in August for approval. Administration is developing several new options for its compensation package for Trustees’ consideration.
The current budget proposal provides all employees a 5% raise with a minimum salary increase of $5,000 a year. The package is designed to ensure employees who have the lowest current salaries receive the largest percentage increase.
Trustees requested additional options for consideration that would do even more to increase financial support for the lowest-paid employees at the college:
A breakdown of the current proposed compensation structure can be summarized as follows:
| Current Compensation | Average Proposed Increase |
| Under $50,000/year | 10+% Increase |
| $50,000 – $99,999/year | 10-5% Increase |
| $100,000+/year | 5% Increase |
- NEW OPTION 1: Option 1 explores raise options for full-time employees. These employees would receive the greater of the following options: a $5,000 raise, a 5% raise, or a minimum annual salary of approximately $41,600 ($20/hour). Part-time employees, including adjunct faculty, also would receive a raise at a comparable pro-rated rate.
- NEW OPTION 2: In addition to the current proposal, option 2 would include an additional 1-time stipend to help immediately offset the rising costs of living. This stipend would range from $500 to $1,000 for full-time employees with those who are least paid receiving the greatest amount. Part-time employees would receive a pro-rated stipend within this range.
- TEMPORARY HOURLY: The college also will present several options that increase the minimum hourly wage from $15.60/hour. The current proposal recommends increasing the minimum from $15.60/hour to $18/hour.
“We’ve been concerned about how the rate of inflation is impacting employees. What’s clear is that it’s hitting everyone in different ways,” says Neil Vickers, ACC executive vice chancellor of business and administration. “One of the big challenges for us is developing a package that is truly helpful. We put together a package that tries to prioritize a bulk of the dollars to the lowest paid employees of the college as opposed to what we’ve done in the past which is an across-the-board percentage raise. We’ve come up with a different way of doing that this year recognizing that the percentage doesn’t just have to be a big number, the actual number in their net pay needs to be as much as we can get it to be — especially for those lower-paid employees. We hope we’ve put together a good package to try to do that, and the reality is we may be here a year from now having a similar conversation because we don’t know for how long and to what degree this will be an issue.”
The current proposal increases the college’s compensation package from approximately $11 million last year to approximately $16 million this year and is part of a balanced budget for the new year.
Administration will examine areas where money may need to be reallocated to support the various compensation package options while ensuring the overall budget remains balanced without impacting tuition and tax rates.
New options will be presented to the Board at the August 1, 2022 board meeting.
To learn more about the college’s finance and budgeting process, visit ACC’s Finance and Administration webpage.