45 days remain in the 87th Regular Legislative Session.

Last night, the House Public Education Committee met in a formal hearing to consider over 40 bills that were previously heard and pending in committee. Among those bills was HB 3445 by Rep. Dan Huberty (R-Humble), regarding limits on school district fund balances. Huberty offered a committee substitute that would have changed the allowed amount from the total required to pay for 180 days of operations (rather than 110). The substitute also clarified language regarding cash on hand vs. unobligated funds, and it stated that any federal funds received (from ESSER II or III) would not count toward the total. A vote was called on the bill, and the votes were cast as follows:

Rep. J.M. Lozano (R-Kingsville) was not present at the hearing. Chairman Harold Dutton (D-Houston) did not cast his vote as he could see that the bill did not have the votes to pass, so he instead left the bill pending. With the bill pending, it is possible for it to be brought up for a vote at a future hearing. The bill could also be offered as an amendment to another bill on the House floor when HB 1525 (the "HB 3 Clean Up Bill") is heard on Wednesday, April 21.

If you have not yet been in touch with your local legislators to share your thoughts on the topic of local control over school district fund balances, please take the time to communicate that. In fact, if you have already been in touch with your legislator(s) in the House, please make time to circle back and re-emphasize your points. To help with that, we have developed/updated some new tools to assist with:

Another bill that was passed out of committee last night was HB 4465 (Dutton) which would establish a grant program for the use of federal funds. The Committee Substitute adopted made substantial changes to the bill and made it so that the grants would only come from the state discretionary funds (the 9.5% set-aside for which the state may determine use), which helped alleviate concerns about supplanting as well as the amount of control the commissioner would have over the use of the federal funds.

Speaking of federal funds...we're still playing the waiting game on that front. No new news have come forward this week other than Education Commissioner Mike Morath mentioning that he believes we will have news on this front "soon." Meanwhile, 44 states have now delivered federal funding from ESSER II to districts in their respective states. Some have begun to flow dollars from ESER III.

You can find some talking points and other details on that front here:

The Texas House will consider HB 1525, the “HB 3 Clean-up Bill,” on Wednesday of next week. A deadline has been established for amendments to be submitted in advance, so once we have information on some of those key amendments, we will send more information.

You can access our section-by-section of the bill that goes through all the details and compares the filed versions of the bill to the House substitute.

The House Public Education Committee will meet on Tuesday, April 20, beginning at 8:00 a.m. They will take up a lighter load this week and only hear 26 bills. Keep in mind that we are nearing the time when if a bill isn't already voted out of committee, it likely won't have time to pass.

On Wednesday, April 21, the House will consider HB 1525, the "HB 3 Clean Up Bill." There is a deadline of Tuesday morning for when amendments must be submitted, as that bill is wide open for amendments affecting just about every aspect of the Education Code.

On Thursday, April 22, the House will consider both SB 1 (the General Appropriations Act) and HB 2 (the Supplemental Appropriations Act). House members adopted rules for these two bills establishing a deadline for when amendments must be submitted as well, and rules that require if an amendment spends money, that it must make an equal reduction elsewhere in the bill (commonly referred to as the "put-n-take rule").

The Senate Education Committee will likely meet on Thursday, April 22, at 9:00 a.m., but that hearing was not yet posted at the time this report was written.

You can access the full list of all House hearings for the week, or the upcoming hearings in the Senate.

To view any House floor or committee actions, you can watch live or view archives.

Or to see a Senate preceding click here to watch live or view archives.

It's really nice to think of when we'll be post-legislative session. We're planning our first in-person gathering in over a year and we hope you will participate (either in-person or through our hybrid virtual option). Please mark your calendar for Wednesday, June 9, from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. in Dallas at the DoubleTree by Dallas Love Field.

You can register via the link below to attend in person and also find the info you need to make hotel reservations for a discounted rate if you plan to stay overnight. We will have more details about registering to participate virtually in the coming weeks.