Superintendent Matias Segura — and other high-ranking employees in the superintendent’s office — were among the highest-paid employees in the Austin Independent School District in the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to public records.
Segura is also the second-highest-paid superintendent in the Austin area, according to an analysis of regional superintendent contracts. Last school year, he earned a few thousand dollars less than the Lake Travis ISD superintendent, who oversees a smaller district with around 11,000 students compared to Austin ISD’s 69,000.
Chief of Staff LaKesha Drinks, the second-highest-paid AISD employee in the 2025-26 fiscal year, earned about $150,000 less than Segura. Drinks has been with the district for two decades, previously serving as the principal at Guerrero Thompson Elementary and later the executive director of school leadership, where she supervised and evaluated all principals in the district.
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Can’t see the full table? Scroll or swipe right to view additional columns, including stipends and total pay.
Just under half of the 30 highest-paid employees in AISD work in the superintendent’s office, including Segura, Drinks, four assistant superintendents, seven executive directors of school leadership and the special assistant to the superintendent, Angel Vales Lara.
Also on the top salaried list are high-ranking executives in human resources, legal, operations, finance, special education, communication, information systems and police departments.
All employees on the top-paid list made at least $165,000. In comparison, the average Austin ISD teacher made $63,367 in 2024-25, according to TEA data.
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Each top-paid employee’s total earnings includes their base salary plus any annual stipends for cellphone use, travel, special education responsibilities and “extra duties.” According to the district, a stipend for extra duties is awarded for “work beyond the duties” of one’s position. The district declined to elaborate on the extra pay opportunities for all employees on the list.
Drinks, for instance, received $2,000 for her work supporting elementary and secondary schools after the deputy superintendent left the district.
Christina Nguyen, a spokesperson for Austin ISD, also noted that extra duty stipends can be awarded for work that the district typically contracts out. Nguyen offered one example: Alison Ghilarducci, the executive director of communications and community engagement, received a $10,500 stipend for her work on communicating to families about the school closures process.
Ghilarducci and Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Pace will both be leaving the district on June 30, according to Nguyen. Francine Taylor, an executive director on the list, also no longer works for the district.
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The largest extra duty stipend was $25,000 for Segura. Austin ISD said the district awarded the bonus for Segura’s work fulfilling the tenets of the Texas Education Agency’s Special Education Agreed Order, which required the district to address its major backlog of evaluation requests.
To help address its projected $181 million budget deficit, the district has proposed eliminating cellphone and travel stipends and reducing special education and extra duty stipends.
The combined total pay for all top 30 employees was about $5.9 million, with the five highest-paid employees accounting for more than a fifth of that figure. The total pay for all employees on this list was less than 1% of the district’s projected payroll costs for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
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According to TEA’s most recent financial integrity ratings, which reflect the 2023-24 school year, Austin ISD’s administrative spending ratio met the recommended threshold of 8.5% or less. The ratings — which are based on administrative costs, financial transparency and fund balances — help inform the public about the overall financial health of a district. Austin ISD, along with 90% of districts in Texas, received an A-rating.