If you have not done so already, please thoroughly review the TEA TAA letter sent out on June 12, 2025, regarding House Bill 2 (HB2) Implementation: Teacher Retention Allotment (TRA) and Support Staff Retention Allotment (SSRA) and the FAQ document related to TRA and SSRA.
Please be sure to read the entire TEA communication as it contains important information regarding the Teacher Retention Allotment (TRA) and Support Staff Retention Allotment (SSRA). These allotments will require districts to amend budgets and salary schedules for the 2025-2026 school year.
The TEA communication addresses the Teacher Retention Allotment amounts, how the funding is determined, how districts are required to spend funding from this allotment and more. It also stresses how vital the accuracy of the Staff PEIMS related information is and how TEA will use the personnel data submitted during Fall PEIMS (specifically Staff Classification, Total Years of Experience and Teacher Responsibility data) to determine the funds generated for the Teacher Retention Allotment.
We would highly recommend that as you work on service records this summer, you double-check that staff years of experience are correct in ASCENDER. This will ensure that when years of experience are incremented at the beginning of this upcoming year, they will be correct for Fall PEIMS.
Based on this TEA guidance, it appears that districts will need to adjust their salary schedules to add the allotment amounts to be paid as part of the base pay for classroom teachers. Please see the examples available on the FAQ document.
Your district will also need to consider if you have any other positions that currently share the same salary schedule as classroom teachers. If so, your district will need to create a salary schedule specific to classroom teachers and move staff such as librarians and nurses to a different salary schedule.
If your district uses the Salaries tables in ASCENDER to calculate and update salary amounts through the Mass Update utility, then these tables must be added or updated in Personnel > Tables>Salaries>Local Annual or Personnel > Tables > Salaries NYR > Local Annual (depending on when these changes are made for 25-26).
If your district does not use the Salaries tables in ASCENDER, then your district will need to update the spreadsheets or local method of tracking salary table information so that the employee payroll amounts reflect the changes discussed above.
Also, it was noted that additional TRS expenses and other payroll tax or benefit costs may be incurred by the district based on these increases in salary. It is stated that TRA funding cannot be used on those additional costs, as the TRA funding must only be used to increase salaries.
The TEA communication also discusses the Support Staff Retention Allotment (SSRA), how the funding is determined and how districts are required to spend this allotment. It further details that districts are required to spend this allotment on increasing salaries for non-administrative staff and what staff would be considered eligible and those considered ineligible for SSRA.
It was also noted for SSRA that additional payroll tax or benefit costs may be incurred by the district based on these increases in salary (or hourly wages). It states that SSRA funding cannot be used on those additional costs, as the SSRA funding must only be used to increase salaries (or hourly wages).
Lastly, TEA recently posted the updated State Minimum Salary Schedule for 2025-2026. TCC will provide a file with the updated table information to upload into ASCENDER. Once that file is available, we will send out an announcement that includes where the file is posted on our website along with instructions on how to update this information when it is available.
We anticipate that this file will not be available until TRS updates the State Minimum Salary Schedules on their website, which may not be until late July or August.
As more information is provided by TEA, we will communicate additional details regarding HB 2 changes.
If you have any questions, please submit an ESC-16 ASCENDER ticket.