Excellence
Stay Pay
UPDATED 4/12/2024
Stay Pay is an employee retention program announced in April of 2022. It is intended to encourage current employees to "stay" with Mesquite ISD rather than pursue employment elsewhere. The program is guaranteed to be available through the spring of 2026. After the initial five years of the program, Stay Pay will be re-evaluated determine future availability.
How Employees Qualify for Stay Pay
Eligibility Requirements:
- Employees are eligible for Stay Pay after completing a five-year milestone of continuous, full-time employment with MISD. (Example: five years, 10 years, 15 years, etc.)
- Due to the labor-intensive nature of determining Stay Pay eligibility, employee service records are evaluated once a year.
- Employees who are expected to qualify for Stay Pay are notified by email in the spring of the year in which they qualify.
- Stay Pay eligibility is determined by:
- Using the employee’s most recent hire date and counting consecutive years forward from that date and
- determining years of service under TRS rules.
- Employees receive credit for a year of service with MISD when they work at least 90 days in a school/fiscal year (similar to the way TRS grants credit for years of service).
- Employees who qualify for Stay Pay must continue their full-time, continuous employment with MISD through the subsequent November pay date to receive their Stay Pay payment. Employees who are paid semi-monthly will receive their Stay Pay payment on the second semi-monthly pay date in November.
- Retiring employees who qualify for Stay Pay must complete their contract or duty calendar to receive Stay Pay upon retirement. They will receive their Stay Pay payment the month after they receive their last paycheck from MISD.
- Part-time employees, substitutes and retire/rehire employees are not eligible for Stay Pay.
- Part-time years of service do not count toward Stay Pay.
- MISD service awards will not necessarily align with Stay Pay eligibility because the district counts ALL years of MISD service toward district service awards. Stay Pay counts only continuous years of service toward Stay Pay. (See Example 4 on this page.)
Receiving Stay Pay:
- Professional employees who meet the eligibility requirements receive $5,000; paraprofessional and auxiliary employees who meet the requirements receive $2,500.
- Stay Pay shall be paid in November after an employee qualifies for Stay Pay.
Stay Pay Examples
Example 1:
Joe is a teacher who will complete 10 years of service with MISD at the end of his contract in May. He will receive a $5,000 Stay Pay payment the following November if he remains employed full time with MISD with no break in service.
Example 2:
Amy has 12 years of full-time, continuous service with MISD. She will need to work with MISD for three more years before she will be eligible for Stay Pay.
Example 3:
Susie will qualify for Stay Pay in May of 2024. She must continue working for MISD through November of 2024 to receive her payment. If Susie leaves the district before then, she will forfeit her Stay Pay.
Example 4:
Teresa was originally hired in August of 2013, but she left MISD in May of 2015. She returned to MISD in August of 2017 and has been working here full time ever since. She technically has seven total years of MISD service (two years from 2013 to 2015 plus five years from 2017 to 2022). However, she completed five years of consecutive, full-time service in 2022, so she received Stay Pay in November 2022.
Example 5:
Charlie was recognized for 10 years of service to MISD with a lapel pin in May of 2022, but he will not receive Stay Pay in November of 2022. Why? He was first hired in October of 2006 and worked for MISD until June of 2010 (four years of service under TRS rules). He was rehired by MISD in November of 2016 and is still employed here. November of 2016 through June of 2022 count as six years of continuous service with MISD. However, year six is not a milestone year, so Charlie will be eligible for Stay Pay in four more years when he completes 10 consecutive years of full-time service with the district.
How to Figure Out When You Are Eligible for Stay Pay
Important information is available in Employee Self Service.
After you log in to Employee Self Service, look to the menu on the right and click on Personal Information. (Remember that your login and password for Employee Self Service are not the same as your district login credentials.)
Look at your hire date and service date. It's important to know which year is your starting year when calculating Stay Pay.
- Your service date may be earlier than your hire date because you receive service credit for the entire year if you work 90 days in that year.
- If your service date falls after your hire date in Employee Self Service, you did not receive credit for the year in which you joined MISD because you did not work 90 days in that school/fiscal year.
Determine Your Year 1
If you left the district and returned at a later date, in most cases, your hire date shown will be your most recent hire date. The school year/fiscal year in which your most recent hire date occurred is counted as Year 1 for Stay Pay purposes IF YOU WORKED 90 DAYS IN THAT YEAR. If you did not work 90 days in that year, Year 1 would be the following year (because you do not get service credit for a school/fiscal year in which you work fewer than 90 days).
Determine your years of continuous, full-time service from Year 1 through the end of the current school/fiscal year. If your service years total five or a multiple of five, you will likely qualify for Stay Pay at the end of that school/fiscal year. If your years of continuous, full-time service total any number other than five or a multiple of five, you will not qualify for Stay Pay in that year.