AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin Impartial School District has proposed plans to give its transportation staff members a raise.

This would indicate transferring the bare minimum wage for bus motorists from $17 to $21 an hour.

However, the university district will need to have to get absent their drivers’ holiday pay back in buy to offset the price tag.

This has upset some Austin ISD bus drivers, this kind of as Laura Cruz.

“We have earned a raise, but we don’t have earned to have our holiday pay out taken absent,” she said. “We depend on it, mainly because we’re only 9-thirty day period staff.”

These days, the nearby teachers’ union, Training Austin, hosted a rally exterior Thursday’s board meeting to battle back towards the proposed cuts and demand from customers even larger shell out raises.

One of those people in attendance was Nieshon Sandlin, an Austin ISD bus driver for the past 20 yrs.

“It’s taken a toll on all of us, mainly because we are all anxious about our holiday break fork out, mainly because that is the time that we need to have to have pay,” she said.

Wondering ahead toward the upcoming, Sandlin is worried about her holiday spend perhaps heading away.

“What’s heading to come about subsequent year?” she asked. “How am I going to pay out my expenditures? How am I likely to get care of my young children?”

According to Schooling Austin, the district has been handing out holiday getaway pay out due to the fact the early 1970s.

“It’s been 50 several years that the staff of AISD have been making the most of vacation pay out,” Training Austin president Ken Zarifis mentioned. “For the district to just swoop in below and acquire it is egregious.”

Austin ISD explained to KXAN even without the need of holiday getaway shell out, the proposed $21 hourly wage will boost the annual income of entry-level bus drivers by $2,763.44.

A district spokesperson reported, “If we go on to fork out getaway spend and raise the level to $21 an hour, the maximize to the district would be around $2.5 million extra dollars. Our aim is to increase bus driver spend to be aggressive but do it within our budgetary constraints.”

Nonetheless, lots of longtime bus drivers continue to are not accepting this proposal.

“If which is the circumstance, then really do not give us a elevate,” Cruz concluded. “Leave us our vacation shell out go away it the way it is.”

The proposed pay out modify will be set to vote by the Austin ISD Board of Trustees in June.