Texas Senate advances $8.5 billion increase to public school funding
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Late on Thursday night, the Texas Senate advanced a heavily-amended version of House Bill 2 to a third reading, adding $8.5 billion in public school funding over the next two years. The agreement between the Senate and the House was announced to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, more than a month after HB 2 was initially passed on the same day the House passed Education Savings Accounts legislation.
“This historic funding focuses on what works: better-supported teachers, safer schools, and greater opportunities for every student to succeed,” State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said in a joint statement with seven other lawmakers. “The majority of these funds go straight to the classroom—not bureaucracy—ensuring student success drives every decision. HB 2 also strengthens school operations and provides districts with the resources they need to balance their budgets in the long term. The plan reflects our Texas values: empowering educators, investing in students, and securing the future of our state’s economy.”
Funding for public schools
According to a release from Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, the $8.5 billion is broken down into several subcategories rather than investing a large increase in the basic allotment.
The updated HB 2 establishes an ‘Allotment for Basic Costs’ (ABC), which districts can use for expenses such as insurance, utilities and teacher retirement system (TRS) contributions. $1.3 billion will go to the new ABC.
Additionally, $850 million will go to “overhaul special education,” and $430 million will go towards school safety. A key amendment added to the initial version of HB 2, which establishes a fully funded full-day pre-K program, was also included in the final compromise.
“If the Legislature were to pass just one of the major components in HB 2—be it record-setting teacher pay raises, full-day pre-K, or a long-overdue overhaul of special education—that would be a transformative victory in its own right,” State Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, said. Bernal authored the full-day pre-K amendment in the House. “But HB 2 delivers all of these reforms and more, and when taken together, they represent a truly landmark achievement for Texas public education,” Bernal said.
Teacher Pay Raises
One of Gov. Greg Abbott’s seven emergency items at the beginning of the session was to increase teacher pay. The updated version of HB 2 sets aside $4.2 billion for permanent teacher and staff pay raises.
The permanent raises come for teachers with over three years of experience, with an additional raise for those with over five years experience. In addition, HB 2 grows the Teacher Incentive Allotment program, expanding it to more teachers across the state.
Lastly, the bill allows for up to an $8,000 bonus for rural teachers.
““This agreement represents a historic breakthrough for rural Texas—for far too long, small and mid-size districts have been asked to do more with less, and HB 2 directly responds to those challenges,” State Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, wrote. “This bill will put rural Texas schools on stronger footing than ever before.”
Concerns with HB 2
While the bill garnered praise from both sides of the aisle, not everyone shares the enthusiasm.
“This was a backroom deal. Members of the legislature in the House and in the Senate weren’t involved in the creation of this new version of the school finance bill,” State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said. Talarico is a member of the House Public Education committee and a former classroom teacher. “It angers me, because I came here to represent my constituents. I work with 150 members of the legislature who also are here to represent their constituents, and the fact that members of the House didn’t get an opportunity to craft the details of this bill is an outrage.”
Like most, Talarico had only been able to see the details as laid out by Burrow’s staff. He took issue with the bill taking funds from the basic allotment and moving them to allotments with less flexibility.
“I think the state legislature is acting like the school board of Texas. They’re trying to micromanage our local school communities across the state,” he said. “The only way that we can keep schools open and that we can increase student performance is if we allow local communities to do the job that we’re asking them to do without the state looking over their shoulders and micromanaging everything they do.”
Talarico also has issues with the raw amount of new funding coming in, especially after the state dedicated $1 billion to ESAs — a program assisting families with private school tuition — earlier this session.
“This school finance package doesn’t even catch us up to 2019 funding levels. We’ve had six years of rampant inflation,” he said. “Most of our teachers are leaving the profession within the first five years, and within this package, those are the teachers who are getting the smaller pay raises — if they’re getting any at all. Teachers who are under three years don’t get any pay raise at all. We have a $24 billion budget surplus in this state. We have enough money to give an across-the-board teacher pay raise to every educator in our state and the Republican leaders in this Capitol refusing to do so. So this package is inadequate to the crisis that we face.”
