With session's end looming, schools ask for more funding

The sun shone warm over Smith Elementary School in Southeast Austin this week as representatives from about a dozen Central Texas school districts gathered outside the campus to ask for more state money from the Legislature.

School leaders called the May 1 event “Mayday,” in reference to the financial state they said Texas schools are in.

“The cost of doing business across the U.S. has risen for everything and so has education,” said Tommy Hooker, the Thrall school district's superintendent. “The basic allotment has not kept up with the rising cost of education. Many school districts in Central Texas have had to consider cutbacks on programs and school closures.”

The gathering of superintendents, school board members and parents was one of a flurry of events school district officials have put on since January to ask state lawmakers to increase school funding.

With only three weeks left in the session, lawmakers are coming down to the wire to nail down the state budget and education funding for the next biennium.

House and Senate lawmakers have proposed increasing education spending by $5 billion.

Both chambers have advanced proposals on teacher raises, school safety and increasing per pupil funding, and they have allocated $5 billion to public schools, but exactly how to prioritize that money remains up in the air between the House and Senate.

Texas lawmakers propose teacher pay raises

Senate Bill 9 by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, would allocate $2 billion for teacher raises and other measures. In the House, Houston Democratic Rep. Harold Dutton’s House Bill 11 would spend $500 million on teacher raises.

The House also passed a $5 billion package, House Bill 100, that would increase per pupil funding — the main mechanism for paying staff — from $6,160 to $6,300. The bill from Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, would increase funding for classrooms, but district administrators said it’s not enough.

“We really need a $900 increase to the basic allotment just to catch up to inflation,” said Eduardo Ramos, the Austin district's chief financial officer.

Raising the basic allotment gives more money to every district in the state, he said.

"We are looking at proposing a deficit budget this year, at the same time, doing our best to take care of our employees," Ramos said.

HB 100 is a good bill, but it doesn’t put enough back into the system, said Chandra Kring Villanueva, director of policy and advocacy for Every Texan, a nonprofit policy institute.

The Texas House is proposing to invest $12 billion in tax relief, reducing the local burden to pay for schools, but that shift won’t give districts more money, she said.

“A lot of the leadership at the Legislature is saying they're making the biggest investment in public education ever, but all they're doing is shifting where the tax is collecting,” Villanueva said. “It completely leaves the classrooms behind.”

Texas is toward the bottom of per student funding compared with other states.

Compared with the national average of $15,446 per student, Texas spends about $12,649 per student when adjusted for cost-of-living differences, according to the Education Law Center. That puts the state at 40^th in the nation, said Danielle Farrie, research director at the law center.

In states like Texas, with lots of resources but low per pupil spending, efforts to increase spending often get stalled in political processes, she said.

“We should look at school funding as a state obligation,” Farrie said. “The states are the ones that set up the whole system. If states decide property taxes should be part of that they should set up a formula that is adequate and equitable.”

Texas has risen in the rankings slightly, but it has a long way to go to reach the middle, she said.

Education savings accounts

The House and Senate will also have to reconcile their differences on education savings accounts.

The Senate’s main education savings account proposal, SB 8, would give parents $8,000 a year to use for private or home school and would cost the state about $531 million.

“They'll find somewhere in the budget to find a way to pay for whatever might pass should it pass,” said Jaime Puente, director of economic opportunity with Every Texan.

Education savings accounts, though, have faced opposition in the House, so the Senate might try to water down SB 8 by limiting the proposal to special education students, Puente said.

That substitute could come from a House bill or Houston Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt’s $1.5 billion special education package, SB 1474.

In addition to grant programs for hiring and increased transportation funding, the bill would give parents of special education students money for private schooling or other services.

Bettencourt said he hopes his bill is more likely to gain approval in the House.

“We've got to rethink the blockage of using a tool like an ESA to help special needs children,” Bettencourt said. “We just need to think that we should try to get them any help.”

Other bills

The Legislature also plans to fund school safety and curriculum development proposals.

HB 1605 by Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, would spend $732 million to develop instructional materials. Creighton introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

SB 11 by Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, would invest $230 million in school safety, compared with King’s HB 13, which would fund $1.7 billion, and HB 3 by Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, which would put in $293 million.

The last day of the legislative session is May 29.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: With session's end looming, schools ask for more funding