This story was updated Friday evening with new details.

Gov. Greg Abbott wants to give teachers a $1,000 raise this summer and create a new program to reward Texas' best educators. But school officials around the state have one question: Who's going to pay for it?

The salary bump and retention efforts are part of long list of items lawmakers are likely to tackle during next month's special session. The governor hopes the raise will help districts keep quality educators.

Abbott "believes that too many of our best teachers are underpaid, and if Texas is to retain and attract the best and the brightest, we must increase their pay," said John Wittman, the governor's spokesman.

But as budgets remain tight, district leaders say any move to boost salaries by making school districts pick up the tab will put them on the hook to cut jobs or programs. And at least one plan making the rounds seems to indicate that the districts could pick up a big share of the costs.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath said he's heard concerns from school leaders across the state about the costs of such programs, but he's hopeful lawmakers can find a solution.

"Of the calls on special session, you have two of them directly related to teachers — a pay raise and improvements in hiring and retention," he said. "I'm optimistic that there will be something considered by the Legislature that might have a positive impact on teachers."

Many public school advocates were surprised that a teacher raise is being highlighted as a priority for the special session, since raises weren’t discussed during the regular session that ended in May.

“Raises have good PR value, and it deflects from the fact that all the other education issues on the call are pretty awful,” said Monty Exter, lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators. “Some are specifically beating teachers up.”

Teacher groups spent much of the regular session advocating for fixes to the financially strapped Teacher Retirement System, changes to academic accountability and more money for public schools as a whole. Results were mixed at best.

Proposals on the table

The plan to give raises to teachers now being circulated in some districts would increase the average teacher pay for districts and public charter schools by $1,000 from their 2016-17 levels over the next three school years. That proposal also aims to have an average teacher pay of at least $51,000 for schools and would require those below to continue to boost salaries to work toward that threshold.

Public school advocates say Morath has been sharing with educators the raise proposal and a separate retention plan inspired by the pay-for-performance system in Dallas, where he was a trustee.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath says Texas can learn from Dallas ISD's teacher pay system. (David Woo / Staff Photographer)

But the proposal being circulated for a statewide retention plan differs significantly from DISD’s system. Texas would create three new teacher distinctions tied to salary increases. Dallas has nine levels.

The state’s three levels of distinction would be "accomplished" teachers who are nationally board certified; "distinguished" teachers who are in the top 25 percent of performers; and "master" teachers who are in the top 5 percent. Performance rankings would be based on student growth, district nominations and peer recommendations.

Districts would get an additional $4,000 in state money for each teacher who earns such distinctions. Schools in rural areas and high-poverty campuses would get $8,000 for each distinguished teacher and $20,000 for each master teacher.

Morath could not be reached on Friday to discuss the specifics of the plans. But earlier in the week, he told The News that Texas can learn a lot from Dallas' efforts. He credited it for boosts in school performance at some of DISD's most struggling schools, which also benefited from a program that moved its best teachers to those campuses.

“Dallas has 14,000 fewer kids in low-performing campuses now than it did two years ago,” he said. “That is very different than anywhere else in the state.”

And he pointed to a recent survey of more than 10,000 Dallas teachers that showed 61.7 percent agreed that their salaries should be based on how effective they are as instructors.

In recent years, more than 20 percent of teachers left Dallas ISD annually. But officials say that's creeping downward, in part because of Dallas' merit pay system, called the Teacher Excellence Initiative. TEI can boost pay up to $5,000 for the best educators. But that means not all teachers get raises.

Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he'll be closely following the lawmakers’ debate on the issue, particularly to see what kind of funding comes with it.

"I'm very interested to see what they do with addressing teacher retention," Hinojosa said. "That's more important to us now, and our TEI system has really slowed our turnover rate. But the biggest challenge is that it's very expensive to do."

Tight budgets

As budgets remain tight, school leaders across the state say any move to boost salaries without additional state funds will put them on the hook to cut jobs or programs.

"It's a laudable goal if the state gave an additional $1,000 per teacher to districts in state funding. Otherwise, it's going to be painful,” said Dax Gonzalez, who works on governmental relations for the Texas Association of School Boards.

But Abbott has suggested that Texas doesn't need to spend more money, just to spend smarter.

“These pay increases can be achieved by reprioritizing how schools and districts spend their money,” said Wittman, Abbott's spokesman.

That could leave districts scrambling to reprioritize millions of dollars as it adjusts pay for the state’s 350,000 teachers.

Exter said teachers deserve raises but not at the expense of larger class sizes, teacher layoffs or other measures districts would resort to in order to pay for them.

Texas teacher salaries rose modestly amid deep state budget cuts in 2011 and tight district finances. The average teacher salary has grown by $3,887 — or nearly 8 percent — to $52,525 since then.

New teachers saw the biggest increase in pay during that time, particularly in the Dallas area.

With so many districts in the area, school leaders in North Texas are continuously in a game of one-upmanship to recruit and retain the best educators. Many start new teachers off with a salary of at least $50,000, significantly higher than the state average of about $45,500.

School officials say they need flexibility with their money to focus on their districts' specific needs, such as offering bonuses in critical shortage areas like math, bilingual education or special education. And a raise mandate from the state would come after lawmakers continue to reduce their share of public school financing through cuts like eliminating grant funding for pre-K, which districts like Dallas must now make up with existing funds.

New raises would mean districts could have to dig even deeper into their pockets. They could have to fund the $1,000 average pay raise and make up any differences in salaries to get distinguished teachers in their districts to an average of at least $68,000 within three years and master teachers to an average of at least $85,000 within five years, according to the proposal being circulated.

Hinojosa is keeping an open mind until the district can fully examine how proposed legislation affects Dallas. But unless funds are included, a mandatory raise could mean scrambling to find up to $10 million more for teachers and adjusting an already complex pay system.

“We’ve already reduced our budget $50 million to afford some of our strategic priorities,” said Hinojosa. “That included strategic compensation with TEI as our vehicle to address retention.”