Record-breaking money for Texas public schools passes Senate

The bill creates new allotments for fixed costs and support staff.

By Philip Jankowski and Talia Richman
https://www.dallasnews.com/

AUSTIN — Public schools will get a record-breaking $8.5 billion in new dollars to pay for teacher raises, safety improvements, rising costs and more under a bill passed by the Texas Senate on Friday.

The unanimous passage of House Bill 2 by the Capitol’s upper chamber puts the second major education measure on track to the governor.

Texas school leaders celebrated the historic funding even though they hoped for additional dollars to flow in a more flexible manner, allowing them to shift spending to meet local needs. Senators said the compromise bill ultimately helps schools cover costs, easing financial strain.

Richardson schools superintendent Tabitha Branum said she’s grateful state lawmakers found a middle ground on funding. RISD officials are bracing for a budget shortfall next school year but say HB2 will help it be significantly less.

For example, HB 2 roughly doubles the state’s safety allotments for public schools, bumping the per-student amount to $20 and the per-campus amount to $33,540. Texas schools had to implement costly security mandates, such as hiring armed guards and other efforts to “harden” schools, in recent years.

“It doesn’t fully close the gap on what we’re spending, but it definitely, again, makes a dent in that investment,” Branum said.

Other key earmarks in the bill include $4.2 billion for teachers, $850 million in investments in special education and roughly $1.3 billion for school districts to pay for operating costs such as utilities, buses and insurance that have increased substantially in recent years.

“House Bill 2 is the most transformative education package in Texas history,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said during debate Thursday. “I call it that because we have policies within this bill that will change public education forever.”

The bill strikes a compromise between the House and Senate — keeping the Senate’s preferred prescriptive model of how school districts must spend the infusion of state funds while also addressing increasingly expensive fixed costs of running public schools that the House hoped to achieve.

Teachers will see pay raises designed to encourage teacher retention through experience-related bonuses. Those pay raises are doubled for teachers in small districts and could lift teachers’ salaries as much as $8,000 after they reach five years of experience and $5,000 for teachers in larger districts.

The effect on North Texas schools was not immediately clear as lawmakers rushed to approve the plan with major changes made on the Senate floor before districts could perform their own analysis on how it will alter their bottom lines.

Public school officials closely watched the bill’s evolution in recent days as many are finalizing budgets for next school year.

Dallas ISD, for example, approved its budget late Thursday as the school finance bill was debated in Austin. The school district has projected a $129 million budget shortfall that may be mitigated by new state funds.

Money for public schools emerged as a bargaining chip for a THC ban as the legislative session hurtles toward its finale on June 2.

It became entwined with a legislative proposal that would completely ban the sale of hemp-derived THC.

The House appeared to stall on the THC ban — a chief priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate — for several days while leaders in both chambers negotiated over school finance behind closed doors. After a deal was announced, the House quickly passed the THC ban.

Republican leadership in the House, including Speaker Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, sold HB 2 as a “Texas two-step” that was passed on April 16 alongside a bill, now signed into law, that allows parents to use taxpayer money to pay for private school education.

Democrats flatly opposed the voucherlike education savings accounts but lined up in favor of the public school funding bill.

The House had preferred boosting the per-student funding for the first time since 2019 from $6,160 to $6,555. Instead, the compromise bill increases that funding mechanism known as the basic allotment by only $55 per student.

In exchange for adhering to the Senate’s philosophy of directing how school districts must spend the new money, House negotiators garnered $500 million in new funding. Much of that goes to a new allotment for other school staff such as librarians, custodians and cafeteria workers.

Texas AFT, a union representing 66,000 educators and school support staff, said in a statement that the organization supports the compromise bill and urged the House to concur with the negotiated amendments made on the Senate floor.

“Targeted, directed allotments are a novel approach, and we hope the Legislature continues to fund them in future sessions,” said Zeph Capo, president of Texas AFT. “This must be the start of a longer conversation about what our students, educators, and schools truly need to thrive.”

Some of the key provisions in the school spending bill include:

• Experience-related teacher raises of $4,000 for teachers with three or more years of experience in smaller school districts. Three-year bonuses for teachers in larger school districts remain at $2,500. Five-year experience raises would be $8,000 for small districts and $5,000 for larger districts.
• A $45 per-student allotment was added to increase pay for non-teacher staff, not including executive-level employees such as superintendents and principals.
• Stipends for uncertified teachers to get certified with an emphasis on teachers in foundational subjects in grades kindergarten through third grade, with a goal to phase out the hiring of uncertified teachers in those grades by 2030.
• $200 million in increased funding for charter school facilities.
• This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.