TUSD employees will get payment of up to $1,000 each

Tucson Unified School District employees will receive a one-time payment of up to $1,000 each, unanimously approved Tuesday night by the district’s Governing Board.

TUSD will use $4.2 million in federal COVID relief money to make the payment, and about 8,800 employees will benefit, officials said.

Regular, full-time employees will receive $1,000.

Part-time employees (less than half time) will receive $500. Substitute teachers, elementary school monitors and bus driver trainees completing 25 days by May 22, 2024, are eligible.

Payments will be made in two rounds, on June 14 and June 28.

The money will come from TUSD’s remaining, uncommitted COVID relief funding, which must be spent by Sept. 30.

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“We want to make sure we use it to benefit our students,” TUSD board member Ravi Shah said. “There’s no way to benefit our students more than making sure we have the best workforce available for them.”

The stipend is being offered instead of a permanent salary increase, which has been off the table since dropping enrollment figures were tallied towards the beginning of this school year, TUSD Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernandez told the Arizona Daily Star on Monday. A loss of students means a reduction in state funding.

Representatives of Tucson Education Association, the district’s teachers’ union, declined to comment.

District employees received stipends through previous rounds of federal COVID relief funding totaling $7,500. The last payment, a retention stipend, was made in December 2023.