State of Texas: Senate plan would send an additional $8 billion to public schools

AUSTIN (Nexstar) – With just over two weeks to go before the end of the legislative session, Texas lawmakers still need to pass a public school finance plan. Now, a new proposal from the Texas Senate could move the funding forward.

The Texas Senate Committee on Education K-16 held a hearing Thursday morning to discuss the future of public school financing, nearly a month after the House passed a bill to give public schools an almost $8 billion in additional funding.

The bill discussed on Thursday is a different version from the bill the Texas House passed on April 17, which is not a surprise. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, the chair of the education committee, told Nexstar earlier this month there are differences in how the House and Senate want to finance public schools.

After a couple of hours of testimony, the bill was left pending in committee. Creighton said at the end of the hearing he would continue to listen to stakeholders as the legislature fine tunes the school finance bill.

On Tuesday, his office released a one-pager with highlights of his committee substitute to House Bill 2. It details pay raises for teachers with at least three years of experience and an even bigger pay bump for teachers with more than 5 years of experience; provides payment to teacher candidates for in-classroom, pre-service training; and provides an additional $1.3 billion in special education funding, among other things.

Although the two approaches vary, they both have a similar end-goal: additional funding for schools that falls between $7 and $8 billion. The differences in the bill come down to the different avenues and pathways lawmakers want to use to finance schools.

The specific details of the bill will not come out until Thursday morning when it is laid out in committee.

The basic allotment

A huge difference can be seen with the basic allotment. The basic allotment is the base-level funding for each student in public schools across the state. It is very flexible for school districts and can be used for maintenance, teacher and staff salaries, transportation, etc.

The House’s version of the bill, authored by State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, provided a $440 increase in the basic allotment, which has not been raised since 2019. Texas House Democrats argued that number was far too low to help school districts catch up with the rise in inflation. Instead, they wanted a $1,400 increase.

However, it appears the Senate’s version of the bill only increases the basic allotment by $55 through golden penny yield reforms.

Texas’ Big Three — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Speaker Dustin Burrows — all praised the proposal from Creighton at a news conference on Wednesday. Burrows said he is “excited” about the bill, and Patrick said he has looked through the legislation and called it a “masterpiece of school finance.”

But the bill is facing criticism before it is even laid out in committee. State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, issued a statement saying, “Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans are defunding our schools in broad daylight.” He argues the Senate’s proposal removes funding for full-day pre-K, low-income students, and bilingual education programs.

The low increase in the basic allotment has raised the alarm for Stephanie Stoebe, a 4th grade teacher in Round Rock ISD with 21 years of teaching experience. She wants to see an increase in the basic allotment and an increase in teacher compensation. “About 80% of school districts are are operating with a deficit. So we desperately need to have a change to the basic allotment system so that we can function,” Stoebe said.

Mary Lynn Pruneda, the director of education and workforce policy at Texas 2036, said the low increase in the basic allotment is not necessarily underfund a school, emphasizing that the school finance system is complex. “There are 1,000 different ways that you can spend money in school finance. Just because you’re not solely putting money into the basic allotment, doesn’t mean that you’re not doing other great things downstream in the formulas as well.”

Pruneda said Creighton’s approach of creating a designated allotment for teacher pay raises could free up some dollars in the basic allotment for school districts to use toward other costs. “It’s like if suddenly you got 10% more on your paycheck, you put that towards your mortgage, that means that you have more money to free up groceries,” Pruneda said as an example.

How is that money going to be used?

The different versions of the bill is expected to be heavily debated in the hearing on Thursday morning. Public school advocates are already putting a call out to members to show up at the Capitol for the hearing.

Ultimately, Pruneda explains it is not about the final price tag of the school finance bill, but how that money is going to be used to improve the education of Texas students. Stoebe, who has seen generations of students come through her classroom, echoes that same belief.

“If we want to have a great, civilized and responsible society, we need to make sure that we’re educating them in the best way possible, and that can only come about by really ethical conversations about money,” Stoebe said.

Senator’s bill would save Texas Lottery, but end Lottery Commission

A Texas state senator who previously called for eliminating the Texas Lottery is now proposing legislation that would keep the games going. Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, filed Senate Bill 3070, which calls for transferring lottery operations to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and abolishing the Texas Lottery Commission.

Hall was one of the first lawmakers to call for an investigation into the Texas Lottery Commission over their alleged role in a controversial 2023 Lotto Texas drawing.  He previously filed Senate Bill 1988, which would eliminate the lottery.

On Monday, Hall laid out SB 3070 before the Senate State Affairs committee. Hall restated his belief that the Lottery Commission helped rig the 2023 jackpot drawing. He also outlined his belief that the lottery amounts to a regressive tax on poor Texans.

Hall showed fellow senators on the committee charts showing that people in lower income areas in Texas make up the majority of lottery players. High income areas account for significantly fewer lottery ticket purchases.

“When we talk about the revenue raised by the Texas Lottery, we’re talking about revenue raised to the detriment of those in our state who are the most vulnerable and least fortunate,” Hall told committee members.

But Hall also acknowledged an argument made by supporters of the lottery. He noted that the Texas Lottery contributed more than $2 billion to benefit schools and veterans in fiscal year 2023.

“So if there isn’t enough of an appetite to get rid of the lottery outright, then this bill represents the next best thing – moving oversight of a lottery operation to TDLR and dissolving the Lottery Commission,” Hall said.

SB 3070 calls for creating a Lottery Advisory Committee “to provide external expertise on the lottery.” It would also ban ticket sales via phone, internet, or app. The bill also limits the number of lottery tickets that could be sold in a single purchase to 100 tickets.

Senator Hall told committee members that there will likely be amendments to the bill. He outlined plans to include restrictions on where people can buy tickets, age verification requirements, as well as tougher penalties for illegal ticket sales.

Senate Bill 3070 is moving quickly at the Capitol. The bill passed through the Senate Thursday, just days after Hall introduced the legislation. The bill has been sent to the House for consideration.

‘I’m here to use my voice,’ Texas mom works for new law after daughter’s death

Inside a climate-controlled storage unit just outside Houston is an almost identical layout of Jocelyn Nungaray’s childhood room. 

Her mom, Alexis, points out all the small details she took into account when recreating her daughter’s room, including how she hung the movie and video game posters that adorned her wall. 

“Some of them are crooked because she had them crooked, but she thought they were straight and she thought they were fine,” Nungaray said with a smile. 

Nungaray visits this room weekly. She says it’s good to be surrounded by the memories of her daughter and her belongings, some of which still carry her scent. 

“It just makes me feel like she’s still alive,” Nungaray said. 

Jocelyn was killed last June. Houston police say they found her body in shallow water underneath a bridge within walking distance of her home. Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena, two Venezuelan nationals, are charged with sexual assault and murder. Her death shocked the local community, but its impact was far-reaching. 

Kim Ogg, the Harris County District Attorney, announced in December she is seeking the death penalty against the accused. 

Federal immigration authorities say the two men were in the country illegally at the time of the murder. Jocelyn’s story gained traction across the country in the midst of a presidential election as Republicans ridiculed President Joe Biden’s border policies. It’s also inspired bills working their way through the Texas legislature. 

“She said it, whether she was famous or not, ‘everyone’s going to know my name. I promise you, everyone’s going to know my name,’” Nungaray said. Since her daughter’s death, she said she has devoted her life to advocating for Jocelyn. 

Three months after Jocelyn died, Alexis traveled to Washington D.C. to provide testimony in front of the House Committee on the Judiciary. In her testimony, Nungaray said the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies were responsible for Jocelyn’s death. 

“The program the two illegal immigrants were enrolled in failed my daughter, Jocelyn. I’m here to use my voice and raise awareness of how broken our country has become with our open border policies,” Nungaray said in her testimony. “As a U.S citizen, it shouldn’t be a privilege to have safety in this country. It should be a requirement.”

What is Jocelyn’s Law?

Her advocacy effort has garnered support from Gov. Greg Abbott, who highlighted Jocelyn at his State of the State address in February. He became emotional talking about Jocelyn, saying, “Justice for Jocelyn demands action. I demand legislation.” 

At the state level, Nungaray is advocating for SJR 1, a constitutional amendment that would deny bail to any person in the country illegally who is arrested and charged with a felony. It is called Jocelyn’s Law.

“I truly believe if they didn’t want to be held with no bail, no bond, they should not have committed such heinous crimes in the first place,” Nungaray said. 

It is part of a larger push for bail reform at the State Capitol this session. Nungaray provided testimony to the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. The bill gained bipartisan support in the Texas Senate, passing out of the higher chamber in a 28-2 vote. 

“No family should have to go through what Jocelyn’s family and others have endured,” wrote Senators Carol Alvarado, D-Houston; Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio; and José Menéndez, D-San Antonio.  “SJR 1, which seeks to address serious public safety issues stemming from judges who are not following current state laws on bail, is a first step to ensuring dangerous offenders are not released.”

However, while that group of Democratic senators supported the bill, they said they still have concerns, issuing a statement into the Senate journal following the vote to express them. 

The senators said they believed the way SJR 1 was written at the time will be found unconstitutional, violating the 5th and 14th amendments. The group also hopes to change the language so it narrows the focus to violent types of crime. 

“As drafted, the current language applies to ALL state jail, first, second and third degree felony offenses, making it more difficult for judges to prioritize cases involving violent offenses,” the group wrote.

The senators also worry about how broad the language is concerning the definition of “illegal alien.” As it is written, Jocelyn’s Law defines an illegal alien as anyone who entered the United States without inspection, or anyone who entered the country as a nonimmigrant and failed to maintain that status before they are accused of a crime. A nonimmigrant can be any foreign person allowed to enter the country for a certain amount of time and for a certain purpose, such as a student visa. 

The senators argue the language should be refined to “ensure that those who may have initially entered the country without authorization but have since gone through the appropriate legal processes to gain lawful status are not impacted by this legislation.” 

Their final concern deals with the Laken Riley Act, which the United States Congress passed earlier this year. It requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain anyone in the country who is unauthorized and accused of committing a crime like burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.

“We must make sure that we are not shifting the cost of detention from the federal government to local taxpayers since counties are responsible for housing defendants pre-trial,” the group of senators argued. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch is an immigration attorney and has been following SJR 1. She is concerned that local criminal courts will have to make decisions on someone’s immigration status, a job she feels is better adjudicated in a federal court. 

“Those are two independent systems and they should be independent because immigration is complicated and it’s federal law,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “I’ve represented people who’ve been accused of being terrorists just because they have tattoos. I’ve seen firsthand the way detention can be politicized. I, personally, do not trust the fact that that would not happen at the state level.”

Critics of measures that factor citizenship into the criminal justice system point to studies that show undocumented immigrants have a lower arrest rate than U.S. citizens. A study from the National Institute of Justice – the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice – analyzed data from the Texas Department of Public Safety and found “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes” in the state.

Jocelyn’s law would need to garner 100 votes to pass out of the Texas House since it is a constitutional amendment. In late April, Gov. Greg Abbott made multiple appearances across the state to advocate for the measure.

“Judges in Texas, they have to decide,” Abbott said to a coalition of sheriffs who operate on or near the U.S. border. “Will they enforce the laws to protect the citizens they serve? Or make it easy on the criminals who kill them? I think the answer is clear. I think if sheriffs get behind us across Texas, it’ll be an easy one to get across the finish line this session.”

The next day in Houston, Abbott acknowledged the political reality behind the proposed amendment.

“I’ll be honest with you – straight forward, there are 88 Republicans in the Texas House who I know will support this proposal, and to get it passed, [it] would need 12 Democrats in the Texas House to agree to this,” he said. “So it’s just a matter of gaining the support of 12 Democrats.”

However, getting the votes in the Texas House is not the last step. Texas voters would have to make the final decision at the ballot in November. 

Lawmakers file bills targeting southern border

Over the past four years, the state of Texas has spent more than $11 billion to, as Republican lawmakers say, curb illegal immigration as well as stop human trafficking and the flow of drugs coming up through the southern border. 

President Trump promised to close the border and has even sent US troops down to the southern border. The number of encounters at the southern border have gone down: enforcement encounters were 11,017 this past March, a drastic drop from a year ago when encounters were 189,359 in March 2024. 

But even with the drop in numbers, this year’s state budget shows another $6 billion allocated for Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s mission to respond to the southern border that started during the Biden Administration.  

E-Verify

Lawmakers also introduced bills this session to require more companies to use E-Verify when hiring. E-Verify is a federal system to help employers verify an applicant is eligible to work in the United States. Under current law, only state agencies, higher education and sexually oriented businesses are required to use E-Verify services. 

Senate Bill 324, authored by State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would require both public and private employers to use the E-Verify system. The bill passed mostly down party lines 19-12, with state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, being the lone “no” Republican vote. 

The bill does have a companion bill in the House but that has not yet been given a hearing date in the State Affairs committee. 

Border wall

Texas is in the process of building its own state-funded border wall. The Texas Facilities Commission is responsible for carrying out the initiative. In April, the TFC reported it has completed 61.8 miles of border wall construction. 

The initiative has $2.5 billion of funding and the TFC director, Mike Novak, said the agency is ready to build about 85 miles of wall by summer 2026. The state has faced issues approaching landowners to lease parts of their land for the construction, according to the Texas Tribune.  

A few bills in the legislature look to help the TFC acquire more easement agreements. 

House Bill 247, by state Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City, would give a property owner a tax break if they allow state or federal border barriers to be built on their property. Guillen said installing border security infrastructure on private land could create an unfair burden on landowners because it would increase their property value.

It passed out of committee with a majority of support, 11-1.  

Another proposal, SB 316 by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, would allow the TFC to use eminent domain to acquire land for the construction of the border wall. That bill has been referred to the committee on Border Security, but has not been scheduled for a hearing. 

Texans will ultimately decide 

True to what she told her mother, Jocelyn’s name is becoming well-known. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge in honor of her memory and because she loved wildlife. 

Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz filed legislation in the U.S. Capitol to codify the President’s executive order. It would permanently change the name of the refuge about an hour east of Houston. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the bill on Tuesday.

But the connection of her name to Texas legislation has also brought some backlash. Alexis said her daughter’s memorial, staged along the outer fencing of a skate park and right next to where her body was found, has been defaced.

Nungaray, who is Latina, said she has faced criticism from the Latino community for her advocacy of the bill. She recalled a trip to Hobby Lobby where a store employee recognized her. Nungaray said the woman told her she was from Venezuela and apologized for what had happened to her daughter, but did say “we’re not all like that.” 

Nungaray said the woman told her she is worried she could face deportation as President Donald Trump cracks down on the southern border and has promised to deport “migrant criminals.” But Nungaray said she stands by her beliefs that anyone who entered the country illegally has already broken the law and does not deserve to be in the country. 

“I would assume and think you would want to stay under the radar, to stay in a place you chose to come to. But when you put a target on your back by targeting innocent people and doing things with ill will intent, there’s no excuse for that,” Nungaray said.

If Jocelyn’s Law is to become actual law in Texas one day, it will be up to the voters of the state to make the ultimate decision. Polling has shown immigration and border security are a top priority for Texas voters. The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin conducted a poll this past April asking Texans an open-ended question: What do you think should be the legislature’s top priority? 

It was a tie for first, with 15% of respondents saying immigration and border security and another 15% saying the economy and prices of goods.

Texas House backs bill to expand access to low-THC medical cannabis

On Tuesday, the Texas House voted 122-21 to advance a bill addressing perceived issues with Texas’ Compassionate Use Program (CUP). House Bill 46, authored by State Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian is now scheduled for a Monday hearing before the Texas Senate committee on State Affairs.

“The program has been set up, but it’s never been made functional or accessible,” King said.

King’s concerns derive from the lack of accessibility to the program first established by the legislature in 2015.

“There are not enough dispensing organizations licensed in the state of Texas,” King said.

The three licensed dispensers are all Austin-based and current law requires secured storage at the production facility.

“The way it works today is I have to keep all that inventory in Austin, and so when we have patients in Houston and Fort Worth and Dallas and San Antonio, they order the night before. We drive the prescription to them the next morning and if they don’t pick it up, we have to drive it back,” Texas Original CEO Nico Richardson said. “That’s in the high population density areas of Texas.” If we go out into the rural areas… to get on a delivery route schedule, because we need to schedule them out so that we have enough time to fill a route that can take two weeks sometimes.” Richardson says planning to get medication to rural areas can be a weeks-long process.

HB 46 would allow those companies to create secure storage facilities in other cities, expanding easy access for those who need it. The bill would also increase the number of providers.

According to an FAQ section on the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) website, “Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 487 requires that the department issue at least three licenses but no more than the number of licenses necessary to ensure reasonable statewide access to, and availability for patients prescribed low-THC cannabis.” HB 46 requires DPS to issue 11 licenses to increase supply.

Expanded patient eligibility

In 2015, the Texas CUP program was started specifically for intractable epilepsy. Since then the program has slowly rolled more patients in.

Currently, doctors can approve low-THC cannabis for patients dealing with:

• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• Autism
• Cancer
• Epilepsy
• An incurable neurodegenerative disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• A seizure disorder
• Spasticity

Under HB 46, doctors can also prescribe low-THC cannabis for:

• A chronic pain condition which a physician would otherwise prescribe an opioid
• Glaucoma
• Traumatic brain injury
• Spinal neuropathy
• Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel disease
• Degenerative disc disease
• A terminal illness or a condition for which a patient is receiving hospice or palliative care

Instant-use THC

HB 46 would also lift the restriction on using a low-THC inhaler to take their medication.

“There are a lot of patients that have episodic conditions that either need immediate relief or they can’t digest our medication properly,” Richardson said. “If you ingest the medicine, it can take 30 minutes to an hour for it to become active in your system and your bloodstream. When you take it through an inhalation method, it’s almost immediate.”

Richardson says the new method could help first-time users who accidentally take too much cannabis because they aren’t aware of how long ingested THC takes to activate.

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