School finance bill to be debated tomorrow, budget Thursday

41 days remain in the 87th Regular Legislative Session.

We've entered the final six-week grading period for the Texas Legislature.

House to debate school finance Wednesday

Tomorrow, the Texas House will take up the school finance bill of the session: HB 1525 by Rep. Dan Huberty (R-Humble), also known as "the HB 3 Clean-Up Bill."

Rep. Huberty said he was going to file an amendment limiting fund balance amounts, but he did not file it. HOWEVER, we understand that Huberty intends to still offer it on the House floor tomorrow as an amendment to one of his own amendments (which works around the deadline in the rules he requested for this bill).

That's a whole lot of words to say this: there will likely be an amendment proposed tomorrow that would place limits on school district fund balances.

We understand that the language to be proposed would limit a school district's fund balance in very similar fashion to HB 3445, which failed to have the votes to advance from committee last week.

Please make sure your local legislator(s) know about your concerns with any amendment that would place limits on school district fund balances.

To help with that:

You can look up the office number for your local representative here.

There is also an amendment to note by Rep. Chris Turner (D-Arlington). The Turner amendment would require that a district employee that received an increase in compensation from HB 3 for the 2019-2020 school year be entitled to at least that amount of compensation in future years, as long as they are employed by the same district. This would mean that an employee who received a bonus or incentive pay in the 19-20 school year would be entitled to that amount forever more. It could also mean some districts may have to reduce staffing levels in order to continue paying some staff members at that level of compensation.

You can access summaries of all 23 amendments pre-filed for HB 1525 here. We will update the spreadsheet to show the outcomes on proposed amendments and update as any amendments to the amendment come up.

Additionally, as always, 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 committee substitute. We will update that comparison accordingly with any changes made during the House floor debate.

House to debate budget bill Thursday

On Thursday, the House will take up the Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 1, the General Appropriations Act, as well as HB 2, the Supplemental Appropriations Act.

Amendments to be considered were pre-filed for both those bills. You can take a look at our summaries of the amendments that were pre-filed that pertain to public education in some way.

The amendments to bring to your attention for Thursday include:

Holland Amendment on page 140 would prevent the Commissioner of Education from placing conditions on the receipt of federal funds based on payment to or purchase of service from any particular entity.

Rodriguez Amendment on page 141 would enhance the "Morrison Rider" already in the bill by directing that the use of ESSER funding should not supplant state funding for education and adding that the federal dollars for schools may not be restricted by the state in any manner other than what is stated in federal law.

Herrero Amendments on pages 152 and 153 would prohibit appropriated funds from being used for a nonpublic school choice or public education voucher program. Related, the Toth amendment on page 154 would do the exact opposite and allow the use of appropriated funds for the purpose of nonpublic school choice.

Middleton Amendment on page 248 would prohibit any political subdivision from compensating a lobbyist with any public dollars. Entities would be ineligible to receive appropriated funds that do so.

Howard Amendment on page 256 would require public hearings of House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees to approve appropriations of federal funding that may be received in an amount that exceeds $1 billion.

Morrison Amendments on pages 257 and 258 would prohibit appropriation or spending of federal COVID relief funding except as authorized by legislative appropriation enacted during a regular or special session of the Texas Legislature. (These amendments have many co-authors and were also filed on HB 2).

VanDeaver Amendment on page 260 would prohibit appropriated funding (including federal funding) to be used for nonpublic school choice (in any form).

Huberty Amendment on page 264 would require the Commissioner to work with districts to assist them in prioritizing certain strategies for use of federal funds. It would require Commissioner to prioritize schools with high percentages of students not performing satisfactorily on state assessments or with historic achievement gaps for any grants. Additionally, it specifically outlines the use of the state set-aside for the ARP funding, providing specific purposes for Commissioner use.

Federal Funds Update

Thanks to Alamo Heights ISD trustee Stacy Sharp for her commentary published in the San Antonio Express-News this week, Texas running the clock out on COVID-19 school aid.

The attention in regards to federal funding is focused on the House budget debate at the moment. Several amendments (outlined above) speak to the use of the federal funds, and who should have authority to appropriate and/or spend those funds.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Education provided some additional guidance for states this week that relates to the waiver application process for states and the issue that seems to still be slowing things down--questions over the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) and the interplay between public education funding and higher education funding. While this document provided some additional clarity on some issues, it still left some key questions with less clear answers.

One thing that is clearly spelled out in the document is this though:

The Department’s approach to MOE waiver requests will be rooted in the consideration of the impact on students. The purpose of ARP ESSER, ESSER I, ESSER II ... funds is to expand resources for K-12 and postsecondary schools and students, not to replace existing State commitments to K-12 and postsecondary education.

It goes on to say that in determining whether to grant a state's request for waiver, the Department will take into consideration whether the state supplanted funding for ESSER I.

We will keep you updated as we learn more.

What else do I need to know?

The House Public Education Committee and Senate Education Committees both met today. The Senate Education Committee voted SB 27 out of committee today. That bill would allow school districts, charter schools, and institutions of higher education to offer full-time virtual instruction to students (including full-time virtual instruction). The bill would allow districts to offer such instruction to students inside their geographic boundaries, as well as outside them. The new substitute would allow a district to prioritize enrollment for students who live in the district before serving students outside the district. Schools may also choose to create a hybrid model that allows for students to take some courses in-persons and others virtually.

The House Elections Committee will meet tomorrow, April 21, at 8:00 a.m. to consider a list of bills, including HB 330, which would require that in order for an entity (including a school district) to receive approval from voters for the purchase of bonds, a super-majority of voters (two-thirds of those voting) must grant approval. The House voted to suspend the rules to add HB 330 to the committee's agenda just today.

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.

Post-Legislative Update

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.