Texas House budget and public education leaders said Wednesday that the best way to overhaul the state’s school finance system is to increase the base amount of money it gives to each district per student.
While costly, boosting the “basic allotment” — currently $5,140 per student — would help ease systemic funding inequities among the state’s 1,200 school districts and reduce the growing number of wealthier districts that are required to send money to the state to help buoy poorer ones, according to state Reps. John Otto of Dayton and Jimmie Don Aycock of Killeen. The two Republicans, who are both retiring before the 2017 legislative session, chair the House Appropriations and Public Education committees, respectively.
The panels are meeting jointly Wednesday and Thursday to hear from various experts, organizations and the public on how to fix key provisions of the state’s complex, patchwork method of funding public schools. The assignment came from House Speaker Joe Straus in early June, weeks after a momentous Texas Supreme Court decision that upheld the system as minimally constitutional while also deeming it “undeniably imperfect” and urging lawmakers to make improvements.
Otto and Aycock added that the benefits of increasing the basic allotment could go beyond reducing the number of districts that must make “recapture” payments under the state’s Robin Hood plan.
They said the move could also lower the amount of money the state is required to send to a small share of school districts every year since the state forced them to cut property taxes. (Long-held opposition to the Robin Hood plan has gained some momentum recently with Houston ISD, the state’s largest school district, facing its first recapture payment.)
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Rising property values have saved the state about $14 billion over the past decade, Otto told the panels Wednesday, citing calculations from the Legislative Budget Board. Local revenue has made up an increasing share of public education spending during that time.
“Essentially the burden is shifting to the locals, and the state is benefiting from that,” Otto said.
If the state were investing more, school property tax rates would be much lower, officials from state agencies and schools said Wednesday.
Nicole Conley, chief financial officer for Austin schools, told the panels the district would be able to slash its tax rate by 35 cents per $100 valuation if it didn’t have to pay recapture. That would save the average Austin homeowner $1,400 annually, she said, urging a “complete overhaul” of the system while acknowledging that is unlikely.
“I do think that a complete overhaul will be something that is going to require a substantial investment from the state; I’m not quite sure about your temperament and readiness to get there,” she said, adding that lawmakers have become “over-reliant” on recapture.
She suggested capping the number of districts required to pay recapture and providing transportation funding to those that still have to, which the state doesn’t currently do.
It’s nice to see these things discussed, but don’t get your hopes up. Both Reps. Aycock and Otto are retiring, and even if they were coming back there’s no way that any legislation to address public ed funding or school finance in this way would make it through Dan Patrick’s Senate. I’m glad that the concerns of school disitricts (not just HISD) that are being affected by recapture are being heard, but it doesn’t make the strategy of voting down that HISD referendum this fall any less chancy. The Chron has more.