Texas legislative bills signal new money headed to schools, but educators say it’s not enough

AUSTIN — The Texas House has passed its version of new money for Texas schools last week –– an additional $7.7 billion –– but it still remains unclear just how much money Texas schools will see.  

Texas has a bicameral government that typically doesn’t act in tandem until the final days of a legislative session. The current session will end June 2.  The Texas House has stand-alone bills for both school finance and private school vouchers — which they term as “school choice”  — which both passed last week. The Texas Senate passed separate bills for teacher pay and vouchers early in the session. The final version of vouchers and public school spending this session could be reconciled and substituted within those bills, or it could be agreed upon during final budget negotiations. 

Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, spearheaded both the school finance and voucher bills as chair of the House Public Education Committee. Both bills passed on April 16. Buckley called the school finance bill, House Bill 2, “the largest investment of funding for our public schools in the history of the state” and responsive to the concerns raised by House members. 

“Members, we heard hours and hours of testimony, and we had several great discussions on the provisions of this bill,” Buckley said, opening the debate of HB 2. “I want to thank members on the floor right now that have come to me with issues involving very specific things that are happening in your school districts.”

Almost half of the new money in HB 2 must be set aside for salary increases, according to the bill. The House bill also provides a bump in funding for special education and an increase in the allotment that helps rural and mid-sized school districts that lack budget economies of scale. The increase in that rural allotment is especially important to Big Bend school districts.

“Even though it can help, I feel like we’re just so far behind after so many years of not getting new funding,” said Marfa ISD Superintendent Arturo Alferez. “One year is not going to be enough.”

Alpine Independent School District Superintendent Michelle Rinehart, who has looked at specific increases to her district’s funding proposed in the House bill, said HB 2 does provide some short-term relief, even if it doesn’t provide long-term fixes to continuing inequities in the school finance system.

“We are grateful for any and every infusion of funding into Texas public education, even if the total increase doesn’t yet make Texas public schools fully funded,” Rinehart said this week. “Every funding increase helps counteract the years of decreased buying power we have weathered over the last decade.”

The Texas Legislature tied school finance and school choice in a single bill during the legislative session two years ago. Those bills failed, so that funding rolled into the state’s general revenue. This session’s bills are roughly the same amount as last session’s proposals.

Democrats in the House did vote in favor of the school finance bill, but many noted during the debate that the proposed increase in funding has not kept up with inflation. Buckley declined to directly answer whether total spending in HB 2 would match 2019 funding levels, if adjusted for inflation. Instead, Buckley insisted the House had made a significant commitment to return schools to the resources they need.

“I’m going to take that as a no until I get a yes,” countered Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, at the back microphone, drawing cheers from the gallery of public education supporters.

Alferez said the Marfa ISD School Board will hear a presentation from Raise Your Hand Texas — a public education advocacy organization — for an update on the legislation and possible impacts to the district at its Monday board meeting. Until final numbers are decided it will be hard for Marfa to see exactly how the district will benefit in terms of salaries and any effect it has on recapture payments to the state, he said.

Alpine’s budget shortfalls go beyond inflation. The school district, which serves just under 1,000 students within an 1,800-square mile area, receives only 85 cents of every dollar promised by the school finance system, Rinehart said. That’s because of a combination of factors: discrepancies in appraised local property values, a slow decline in district enrollment and the district’s ongoing responsibility to cover a long-time local homestead exemption. The House school finance bill provides some short-term relief on those issues but no permanent fix.

Looking at the early numbers, Rinehart said the new funding in HB 2 is roughly equivalent to funding shortfalls in the budget, allowing the district to draw even with what it should be getting from the state. Alpine is one of about 100 school districts that currently uses the state’s minimum salary schedule. She calculates the pool for salary increases in the new funding formula, which would have to cover all professional staff, would be about $90,000. 

Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the vast resources the state puts into public education with local school district complaints that the funding is not enough, Rinehart conceded. A tax bill may be higher, but it doesn’t mean all that money is going into local school district coffers.

“As property taxes go up –– and particularly school property taxes –– it doesn’t mean school funding is actually increasing for our schools,” Rinehart said. “Instead, the state is divesting itself of its responsibility to fund schools and allowing more of the responsibility of education to fall on the backs of local property owners. That’s why they’re hearing that schools have less and less.”