Overall legislative funding proposals continue to disappoint
TRI-COUNTY — Texas lawmakers are currently considering proposals from the House and the Senate regarding teacher pay increases, a holdover issue from last legislative session named an emergency item by Gov. Greg Abbott in addition to school vouchers, property tax relief and more.
Schools leaders across the Big Bend expressed outrage over the Legislature’s failure to allocate any significant funding towards public education last session despite a $33 billion budget surplus, with many stating public ed funding was “held hostage” by a voucher deadlock.
Last Thursday, the state Senate passed SB 26, authored by K-16 Education Committee Chair Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe). Creighton’s bill would spread $4.3 billion in funding over two years, including up to $10,000 raises for teachers depending on their experience and the size of their schools. The bill also requires the Texas Education Association (TEA) to provide liability insurance to teachers, and teachers’ children would qualify for free pre-K.
The bill was co-authored by Sen. César Blanco, who sent out a press release last week celebrating its passage through its home chamber. “Teachers are the foundation of our schools, but too many are leaving the profession— not because they want to leave, but because they can’t afford to stay,” he wrote, citing data from the National Education Association that ranks Texas 30th in teacher pay, about $10,000 below the national average.
“This funding isn’t a cure-all, but it’s a meaningful step to close the gap for teachers in rural communities and raise the tide for all teachers in Texas. If we want to keep great educators in the classroom, we have to pay them like the professionals they are,” Blanco continued.
Over in the House, legislators are tackling the issue of teacher pay through HB 2, a sprawling school finance bill. HB 2 expands the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program to provide raises to teachers who prove merit through a test score-based system. HB 2 would also increase the state’s base funding per student by $220.
Chandra Villanueva, director of policy and advocacy at Every Texan, a nonprofit policy institute, said while it is a slight relief to see the Legislature debating school vouchers and teacher pay raises separately this session, the chambers are closer aligned on school vouchers than on their two vastly different teacher pay raise proposals, which is “nerve wracking.”
“We still have a really long way to go to come up with a compromise between the two different proposals,” Villanueva said.
She said, in her opinion, both proposals “miss the mark,” by not including an increase in the basic allotment, in SB 26, or not including enough of an increase — $220 per HB 2. The minimum per pupil allotment, $6,160, has not been increased since the passage of HB 3 in 2019. Villanueva said, due to inflation, Texas is spending $1,400 less per student today than it was in 2020.
“Our position is that they should put as much funding as possible into the basic allotment,” Villanueva said. “That is the tide that rises all ships. It gives school districts the flexibility that they need to make compensation decisions across their workforce and not just for teachers.”
Every Texan is also advocating for enrollment-based funding, rather than attendance-based funding, an adjustment that does not appear in the House or Senate bill. Schools are required to report Average Daily Attendance (ADA) to the TEA and can lose money when students miss school, even though the cost of running campuses is the same regardless of exactly how many students are in class on a given day.
She said it remains to be seen whether the Legislature will attempt to tackle any of those larger, fundamental public school finance issues that have come to light since the passage of the last major school finance bill, HB 3, in 2019. Lawmakers have, however, prioritized $22.7 billion in school property tax cuts.
“It’s about choices, and it’s about priorities,” Villanueva said. “And what we’re seeing in the budget and in the discussions at the Legislature is that they are again prioritizing tax cuts before kids.”
Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart said teachers and staff have not received a raise since 2019 due to ongoing funding inequities outside of the district’s control. The district suffers financially due to local option homestead exemptions and county appraisal district/comptroller disputes that result in an estimated $1.5 million loss in funding annually, Rinehart said.
Without a solution to those specific issues that keep Alpine ISD in the bottom 2% of funding per student need in the state, a raise in the basic allotment can only go so far, Rinehart said.
“We’re advocating for closing those loopholes, fixing those issues that are underfunding your poorest districts so that you’re closing the inequity gap between the most underfunded and your average districts in Texas,” Rinehart said. “And then do basic allotment increases that help everyone. But if you only do basic allotment increases across the board, that doesn’t move us out of the bottom two percentile.”
Rinehart said operating costs are also way up due to inflation, meaning the district has had to compress its workforce — it now has fewer employees than they did five years ago — and wages remain stagnant.
“Our costs for meals is up, food services is up, gas and fuel is up, utilities is up, all the same things that people are seeing in their personal lives,” Rinehart said. “We’re not able to increase compensation because we’re having to pay more to keep the lights on and to pay the insurance. Without additional state funds, there’s not a way for underfunded districts to increase compensation.”
Rinehart said she does agree that an increase in the basic allotment would be helpful for all district employees — including paraprofessionals, custodians and bus drivers — because by law a percentage of those additional funds is required to go towards salary increases.
The average teacher salary at Alpine ISD is $48,363, according to the district’s 2023-24 Texas Academic Performance Report. The average beginning teacher salary at the district is $36,441, while the average salary for a teacher with more than 30 years of experience is $64,973. Rinehart said beginning teacher salaries, particularly, are well below state and national averages.
“You actually see even more disparity for our early career teachers,” Rinehart said.
Marfa ISD Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez did not respond to requests for comment on potential teacher pay raises. The average teacher salary at Marfa ISD is $53,557 and the starting salary for a teacher with no experience is the state minimum, $33,600.
Marfa ISD teachers and staff have not received across the board raises since 2019. Marfa teachers do get an annual boost in the form of a holiday bonus from the Marfa Education Foundation. Teacher pay does increase with salary steps with each year a teacher works.
The average teacher salary at Fort Davis ISD is $53,683. Superintendent Graydon Hicks said 5% salary increases were implemented in February 2024 and November 2024, with the latter being in effect for the remainder of the 2025-26 school year.
In Presidio, the average salary is slightly lower at $50,127. In 2022, teachers received a 4% raise, which fell just shy of the 5% they’d been lobbying the school district for. Since then, they’ve received small cost of living adjustments, but the board has not considered a larger increase.
Rinehart said the fact that the required minimum teacher salary is just $33,600 is “an abomination in a state as wealthy as Texas.” She pointed to a bill passed last session that increased salaries for Texas Department of Criminal Justice staff and included a grant to help rural sheriff’s offices increase pay, a model that could work for the state’s teachers.
This February, Alpine and Marathon ISDs received notification that they are the first districts in the Big Bend region to be approved for Teacher Inventive Allotment (TIA) programs designed to reward high-performing educators.
Rinehart said the process of implementing the program, which has multiple levels and classifications, began three years ago and was finally approved this winter. At Alpine ISD, 11 teachers have already benefited from the program, earning anywhere from an additional $6,000 to $23,000 annually for the next five years.
“Combined, we had 11 teachers who earned collectively $167,000 a year of new compensation paid by the state through that program,” Rinehart said.
She said Alpine ISD is looking to expand their TIA program, and recently broadened eligibility to include teachers in grade levels K-2. While legislators are assessing options for increasing TIA funding, Rinehart said the program isn’t a “cure all,” or what Abbott and many Republicans have called a pathway to a six-figure teacher salary.
Rinehart said Alpine ISD will continue to promote “good” education policy on the state level, but there’s no guarantee that any of the persistent funding inequities plaguing her district will see progress this session, and she is still wary of a voucher-focus mindset at the Capitol.
“I am hopeful that enough Texans are making enough noise and putting enough positive pressure on our representatives and senators and state leaders to say enough is enough, you’re starving our schools,” Rinehart said.
Villanueva said rural districts — given low student populations and tight budgets — are in a precarious position if school vouchers pass. If even a handful of students leave to pursue private education, it could hurt a district’s bottom line. And public ISDs will still be required to offer all grade levels, K-12, which is exponentially more expensive per child the less students there are. She urged Texas families to think holistically about the public education system when making personal decisions.
“Kids have one chance at an education, and parents have to make the decisions that work best for them, because there are no do-overs,” Villanueva said. “That’s why it’s important for us to invest in public education, because if a handful of families get frustrated, move to the suburbs, go to a home school or a private option that hurts all the other kids, and we all need to be in it together for all of the kids.”