Texas public schools, Dems worry time running out as finance bill ‘languishing’ in Senate – Dallas News

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AUSTIN – School leaders and advocates worry that the Texas Senate is dragging its feet to deliver on promises to provide the largest infusion of state dollars into public education.
Neighborhood campuses have shuttered, popular programs cut and academic help to struggling students dialed back in recent years as districts face inflation and other budget challenges.
But it’s been nearly a month since the House passed a $7.7 billion proposal that would help them by increasing the state’s per-student basic funding allotment for the first time since 2019.
That’s created some hand-wringing among House Democrats over fears that the finance bill won’t make it over the finish line.
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The funding measure was approved in the House alongside a deeply partisan school voucherlike bill that allows public dollars to flow to private education for the first time.
Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the signing of the education savings accounts bill earlier this month with a carnival-like celebration at the Governor’s Mansion on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But money for public schools has barely moved since it reached the Senate.
“We ought to be pushing back on that,” Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, said Tuesday during a meeting of the House Public Education Committee. “A lot of work was done here on the assurances that we would pass that bill into law or some form of it, and they’re not making any progress at all.”
Little has been heard publicly about what is going on with the bill.
But state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who is helming the bill’s journey through the upper chamber, said Tuesday that the reason it is taking so long is because the bill is among the most complex he has ever dealt with.
“If this bill was in Washington, D.C., it would take a year,” Creighton said.
Creighton did not say when the public could see the latest version of the bill. He said GOP leadership — including Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock — have spent hours working on the proposal.
How to bolster educator quality and provide teacher pay raises are among the key differences between the Senate and House versions of funding schools.
The Senate’s plan included far more targeted teacher pay raises and carried a price tag of $4.4 billion. The House’s approach is more comprehensive as it includes incentives for teachers to get certified, an increase to per-student funding and incentives for special education teachers.
Negotiations continue whether the increase in state funds should focus on per-student funding, which gives school districts more latitude on how to spend, versus a more targeted approach. The House favored a broader approach, while the Senate was more prescriptive.
“All of these pieces fit together in a way that the second that we signal that we have a certain number that could change, we can miss expectations,” Creighton said.
“I think we’re going to land the plane,” he added.
In the meantime, public school leaders are building operating budgets for next year without knowing how much money they’ll be getting from the state.
“The uncertainty of not knowing if we are going to receive any additional funding, that looms pretty heavy,” Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum said.
Branum plans to ask the RISD school board to approve a multi-million dollar budget shortfall — for the sixth year in a row.
“We’re being very conservative in any expansion of programming or investment of new programming because we don’t know if we would have the funds to sustain it,” she said.
That’s meant cutting interventionists from campuses. These staff members targeted struggling students with extra help so they could make progress in reading and math.
With limited dollars, Branum said she must prioritize boosting teacher and staff salaries to make Richardson ISD more competitive.
“We want to have a balanced budget. We know the importance of that, but we know the importance of investing in our people,” she said.
Rep. Gene Wu, who heads the House Democratic Caucus, said in a letter to his colleagues that the bill was “languishing.” Wu couched a tacit threat in the letter — if the Senate continues to drag its feet on House Bill 2, then perhaps they should “take the time to thoroughly understand” each Senate bill heading to the House.
“If the Senate requires 25 days to consider a single House priority, surely we can dedicate appropriate time to ensure we fully comprehend the 157 Senate bills we’ve so diligently processed and the countless more to come before us,” Wu, of Houston, wrote.
That comes as the House struggles to make it through even one-third of its daily agenda. While it is passing dozens of bills a day in sessions that stretch until midnight or later, the pace of legislation often can grind to a halt as procedural questions are called on bills.
In the Capitol, deliberately slowing bills is known as “chubbing.” It can be particularly acute in the House as the chamber moves closer to critical deadlines. The first of those arrives on Thursday, the last day for the House to bring a large swath of bills authored by members of that chamber to the floor.
Often, hundreds of bills die that day, with the only recourse being a resurrection in the Senate, which operates on more flexible deadlines and moves at the pace that Patrick dictates.
Meanwhile, many Texas school leaders are prepping for a worst-case scenario: No increase to base public school funding.
Many, including Richardson, already have closed campuses to save money. More dramatic moves could be looming, school leaders warn.
“I’m a hopeful person. I have hope that our legislators will continue to invest in public education. However, I also have to be a realist,” Branum said. “I have to be a good steward of our taxpayer dollars.”
Philip Jankowski has covered government, politics and criminal justice in Texas for 17 years. He previously worked for the Austin American-Statesman, the Killeen Daily Herald and the Taylor Press. Philip is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
Talia is a reporter for The Dallas Morning News Education Lab. A Dallas native, she attended Richardson High School and graduated from the University of Maryland. She previously covered schools and City Hall for The Baltimore Sun.

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