Foundation supports Port Aransas ISD teachers
As Texas moves slowly to increase education funding and educator pay, the community in one Coastal Bend school district has stepped up to directly support local education.
In the year since its founding, the Marlin Legacy Foundation has contributed more than $200,000 to Port Aransas ISD. The dollars have gone directly to teachers and staff in the form of stipends. Next week, the group is expected to make another contribution, bringing the total amount donated thus far to $312,000.
"It's already making a big difference in recruiting and retaining excellent staff members, teachers and all of our support staff members throughout the district," Superintendent Sharon McKinney said.
Specifically, the group can raise funds for "non-essential" education purposes as defined by the state. The foundation can cover the cost of stipends for employees such as librarians, nurses, custodians, bus drivers and elective teachers, lowering the cost for the district to give every employee a stipend.
"Every single permanent, regular employee benefits from a stipend that is directly related to the contributions from the Marlin Legacy Foundation," McKinney said.
The Marlin Legacy Foundation was created by co-founders Mike Dayon and Chad Shimaitis last spring. Dayon currently serves as president and Shimaitis serves as secretary and treasurer.
"Mike and I were having a conversation one evening — as our teachers continue to retire, what are we going to do to be able to make sure that we can encourage people to come work in our district?" Shimaitis said.
The Marlin Legacy Foundation relies primarily on the local tourism industry, including vacation rentals and condominiums, hotels and golf cart rentals. Businesses such as rental management companies have agreed to raise funds through voluntary fees, allowing tourists who visit the community to donate. Community members can also make donations online.
The Marlin Legacy Foundation is a separate entity from the Port Aransas Education Foundation, which provides classroom enrichment grants, employee development grants and campus enhancement grants.
"We never wanted to possibly get in the way of any of their donor money, so we went after the all the tourist business," Shimaitis said. "The bulk of everything we raise comes from rental companies that put a voluntary checkout fee on their rentals."
The district earned a high "A" accountability rating from the Texas Education Agency last year, one of the highest rankings in the area. The small district serves more than 500 students at three schools. It employs close to 100 staff members. About half of them are teachers, according to the district's TEA profile.
The district covers the north end of Mustang Island, which is only accessible by the John F. Kennedy Memorial Causeway in Corpus Christi or by the Port Aransas ferry.
"We have a really, really good school district and I couldn't be happier having my kids going to school here, but Port Aransas is a town at the end of a road and it's expensive to live here," Shimaitis said.
According to the 2022-23 salary schedule, beginning teacher pay in the district was $47,271 last year. In neighboring districts Flour Bluff ISD, Aransas Pass ISD and Rockport-Fulton ISD, starting teachers base pay was between about $46,000 and $50,100 last year.
Port Aransas ISD will not adopt a budget for 2023-24 until late August.
According to the district's 2022-23 adopted budget, local property tax maintenance and operations revenues in the district were expected to top $36.2 million — but the district couldn't keep the vast majority of those dollars. The state collected over $28.5 million from Port Aransas ISD through recapture, where funds are collected from property-wealth districts and sent to the state, in 2022-23.
Compared to Port Aransas ISD, Gregory-Portland ISD, which is property-wealthy in a different way, has been in a better financial position with the highest-paid teachers in the region. G-PISD is raising starting teacher pay to $61,500 this year. This is due to an expired state tax incentive program that allowed districts like G-PISD to collect payments from businesses with property tax limitations. The payments were exempt from recapture, and the only school districts to benefit were in areas with developments in industries like manufacturing and energy.
The amount of funding each district in Texas receives, either from local tax revenues or state aid, is based on a per-student basic allotment. The state has not raised the basic allotment since 2019.
State lawmakers discussed increasing education funding and teacher pay this spring, but no legislation was passed. Schools are still waiting to see if these goals might be addressed in a special session this fall.
"We all know inflation has skyrocketed the last few years, but yet funding from the state has remained flat," McKinney said.
McKinney said that in PAISD, property casualty insurance has almost doubled, accounting for about a third of the basic allotment.
"It's been very difficult to try to meet all of our increased expenses, as well as an increased pay for our dedicated staff members," McKinney said.
A community steps up
Taking a shot at solving the problem themselves, Port Aransas community members have helped fill that gap.
"Our staff, not only do they receive some extra money in their paycheck, but they also feel supported by our community and valued for what they do here in Port Aransas ISD," McKinney said.
Shimaitis said the foundation hopes to grow and contribute more to the schools in the future.
"We're fully confident that we'll be able to raise $300,000 for this next fiscal year," Shimaitis said. "Ideally, I'd love to see it grow as strong as we can get it... it takes a little bit of time to get everybody on board, but over time, I don't know why we couldn't be doing $500,000 a year."
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Foundation supports Port Aransas ISD teachers
